Quality & Quantity 34: 299–321, 2000. © 2000 Kluwer Academic Publisher s. Printed in the Neth erlands. 299 Text Analysis Software: Commonalities, Differences and Limitations: The Results of a Review MELINA ALEXA and CORNELIA ZUELL ZUMA, Zentrum für Umfragen, Methoden und Analysen, Center for Survey Research and Methodology PO Box 12 21 55, D-68072 Mannheim, Germany, e-mail: alexa, [email protected] Abstract. In this paper we discuss the tendencies in functionali ty and technology of software for text analysis and reflect on those areas where more development is needed. The basis for this discussion forms a comprehensive review of fifteen currently available software for text analysis (Alexa and Zuell, 1999). In the review the following software packages were individually presented in a de- tailed and extensive manner: AQUAD, ATLAS.ti, CoAn, Code-A-Text, DICTION, DIMAP-MCCA, HyperRESEARCH, KEDS, NUD ∗ IST, QED, TATOE, TEXTPACK, TextSmart, WinMAXpro, and WordStat. Here we only delineate our methodology and criteria for selecting which programs to review and concentrate on discussing the types of support the selected programs offer, the common- alities and differences of their functionality, point to some of their shortcomings and put forward suggestions for future development. Key words: computer-a ssisted text analysis, software evaluation and comparison, computer-assist ed content analysis, quantitativ e and qualitative software. 1. Introduction Today a variety of software for text analysis is available which support text analysis tasks within different disciplinary contexts in considerably different ways. These include qualitative-oriented, quantitative-oriented as well as a variety of stylistic, literary and more general text analysis software. In this paper we discuss the tendencies both in functionality and technology of modern text analysis software and reflect on some of the areas for future develop- ment. By doing so, we not only hope to assist users of such software in choosing among available programs, but also in thinking about, testing, and enriching their analysis methodology. The basis of this discussion is a comprehensive review of fifteen currently available software for text analysis (Alexa and Zuell, 1999). Of the 15 software packages 1 we reviewed, the following typically are categorised as ‘qualitative’: AQUAD, A TLAS.ti, HyperRESEAR CH, NUD ∗ IST, QED and Win- MAXpr o; CoAn, DICTION, DIMAP -MCCA, KEDS, TEXTPACK, TextSmart and WordStat are categorised as ‘quantitative’ ones. Code-A-Text and TATOE support