A Linguistic Analysis of Chat Reference Conversations with 18–24 Year-Old College Students Original Research Article

Thirty-one chat reference conversations were linguistically analyzed, compared to twenty-three instant messaging (IM) conversations held between students, and further correlated to studentsʹ satisfaction with the reference interaction. Conversations between librarians and students in chat reference are more formal than those solely involving students, and the use of some linguistic patterns is correlated to user satisfaction.