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In the past 40 years, there have been many studies related to word of mouth; however, no reviews of the word-of-mouth literatures have been found. This study integrates the methods of citation analysis and social network analysis to explore the citation of word-of-mouth papers and further validates the knowledge dissemination of word-of-mouth studies. The results of the research reveal that the three papers - Richins (1983), Brown and Reingen (1987) and Herr, Kardes and Kim (1991) - were in more centralized positions in the citation network. As core papers in the word-of-mouth field, they play critical roles in knowledge. These research findings allow researchers to access studies related to the word-of-mouth field from the past 40 years, and dissemination of word-of-mouth knowledge helps researchers' control over future research directions and the overall knowledge contribution of the word-of-mouth field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]