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I wonder which form(s) are correct amongst the following:
Example:
Short-text classification is an important task in many areas of natural language processing, including sentiment analysis, question answering, and/or dialog management.
This becomes a question of logic, not of the English language.
In this case, I think the correct option is "and."
Short-text classification is an important task in many areas of natural language processing, including sentiment analysis, question answering, and dialog management.
This is because short-text classification is an important task in all of those three areas, not just one of them.
Look at the logical implications of what you are saying to decide which to use. Consider these two sentences:
To be able to get around, you need to buy a car, motorcycle, and bike.
and
To be able to get around, you need to buy a car, motorcycle, or bike.
In that case, the second sentence is likely the correct option (logically). Both are grammatically correct, but you don't need 3 types of transportation to be able to get around. You only need one of them - any one of them. Hence, "or" is the better choice, logically.
It depends on the intended meaning of the sentence.
If you want to say that all three things are included, than you say, "including A, B, and C". If you want to say that only one of the three is included, than you say, "including A, B, or C".
English is a little ambiguous when there are several choices and one or more might be applicable. For example, if a resort advertised that when you visit you can "play golf or tennis", they probably mean that you can do either or both. But if they said, "For a $10 fee, you can play golf or tennis", they probably mean one or the other, and if you want to do both, you have to pay $20.
So sometimes people say "A, B, and/or C" to mean any or all. To clearly say only one you usually need extra words, like "you can choose any one of".
Here, 'including' means 'and'.
Using 'including' to mean one or more of them can be excluded is not sensible.
Instead, use 'either A, B or C' to mean only one of them.
