Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 21:57, 10 December 2006

It has been suggested that this page be merged into Words to avoid. (Discuss)

This guideline is a part of the English Misplaced Pages's Manual of Style. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

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This page in a nutshell: Avoid "some people say" statements without sources.

Weasel words are words or phrases that seemingly support statements without attributing opinions to verifiable sources. Weasel words give the force of authority to a statement without letting the reader decide if the source of the opinion is reliable. If a statement can't stand on its own without weasel words, it lacks neutral point of view; either a source for the statement should be found, or the statement should be removed.

For example, "Montreal is the best city in the world" is a biased or normative statement. Application of a weasel word can give the illusion of neutral point of view: "Some people say Montreal is the best city in the world."

Although this is an improvement, because it no longer states the opinion as fact, it remains uninformative:

• Who says that? You?
• When did they say it? Now?
• How many people think that?
• How many is some?
• What kind of people think that? Where are they?
• What kind of bias might they have?
• Why is this of any significance?

Weasel words don't really give a neutral point of view; they just spread hearsay, or couch personal opinion in vague or indirect syntax. The consensus of editors responsible for Misplaced Pages encourages you to name a source rather than assign an opinion to an anonymous source.

Examples

Here are some weasel words that are often found in Misplaced Pages articles:

• "Some people say..."
• "Some argue..."
• "Contrary to many..."
• "As opposed to most..."
• "Research has shown..."
• "...is widely regarded as..."
• "...is widely considered to be..."
• "...is thought to be..."
• "...is held to be..."
• "It is believed that..."
• "It has been said/suggested/noticed/decided/stated..."
• "Some people believe..."
• "Some feel that..."
• "They say that..."
• "Many people say..."
• "It may be that..."
• "Could it be that..."
• "It could be argued that..."
• "Critics/experts say that..."
• "Some historians argue..."
• "Considered by many..."
• "Critics contend..."
• "Detractors contend..."
• "Observers say..."
• "Fans say..."
• "It is rumored," or "Rumor has it."
• "Accusations..."
• "Apparently..."
• "Allegedly..."
• "Arguably..."
• "Actually..."
• "Obviously..."
• "Clearly..."
• "Speculation has it that.../it is speculated that..."
• "Serious scholars/scientists/researchers..."
• "Mainstream scholars/scientists/researchers..."
• "The (mainstream) scientific community"
• "It is claimed..."
• "Self-proclaimed..."
• "It should be noted that..."
• "Correctly (justly, properly, ...) or not, ..."
• Anthropomorphisms like "Science says ..." or "Medicine believes ..."
• "...is only one side of the story"
• "Experts suggest..."

Other problems

The main problem with weasel words is that they interfere with Misplaced Pages's neutral point of view. But there are other problems as well.

• Wordiness. Weasel words are sentence stuffing; they make sentences longer without carrying any information.
• Passive voice. Many weasel words require a sentence to be in the passive voice, e.g. "It has been said that ...". Though the passive voice is syntactically correct, Strunk and White recommend against its overuse in their Elements of Style, calling it "less direct, less bold, and less concise" than the active voice. The grammatic and linguistic legitimacy of the passive voice in stylistic usage isn't the central issue; more important is the omission it permits, that of exactly who or what is behind the words or actions in question. In typical sentences of this form, e.g. "It has been said he has had a shady past", the writer is able to use the passive voice to effectively construct a very convincing-sounding instance of a doubly fallacious appeal to authority, not bothering to lend any credibility to the authority in question or even assert its existence.
• Convoluted syntax. Weasel words require some convoluted syntax to get a point across. "A square has four sides" is a simple sentence; "Though not universally, squares are widely regarded as having an even number of sides that has been conjectured by experts in the field to be approximately four" wraps the key point in layers of syntactic obfuscation, leaving it to be harvested out of a strange little participial phrase by the reader.
• Use of "clearly" or "obviously". In written language, the word "clearly" is often used to tell the reader that an argument or discussion is clear when it is not. In cases such as these, it is often useful to substitute the claim of "clearly" with actual clear writing.
• Some/many/most/all/few. Sentences like Some people think... lead to arguments about how many people actually think that. Is it some people or most people? How many is many people? As a rule, writers should avoid using ad populum arguments as a general means of providing support for a position.
• Repetition. Barring prolific levels of creativity, overuse of weasel words leads to very monotonous-sounding articles due to the constraints they impose on sentence structure. It is not uncommon to encounter a section detailing different opinions on some subject following the general format of "Some argue... Others respond... Still others point out that " ad nauseam and potentially ad infinitum. Without proper citation, the only criterion for the inclusion of any argument becomes that it has, indeed, been expressed by somebody at some indeterminate point in time.

Are some articles better off with or without the passive voice?

The neutrality of this section is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met. (Learn how and when to remove this message)

In the Misplaced Pages article backronym under the heading "Offensive" every one of the examples given is in the passive voice:

• "is often referred to..."
• "is widely referred to..."
• "often interpreted..."
• "has been etymologically interpreted..."
• "is often disguised..."
• "can be substituted..."
• "has been known..."
• "is said to stand for..."
• "is called sometimes..."
• "truckers often refer to..." (the only example of an active voice, but still a weasel expression)
• "has been re-defined as..."

This article is one of the perfect examples where it is almost impossible to cite sources, an article which in an ideal situation should literally abound in citations, but due to the common usage of backronyms on the one hand, and their obscure derivations on the other, they cannot be followed back to their sources. It lays itself open to POV because it is not substantiated by citations, but its pervasive use of the passive voice will have to be accepted as valid.

Improving weasel-worded statements

The {{weasel}} tag can be added to the top of an article or section to draw attention to the presence of weasel words.

The key to improving weasel words in articles is either a) to name a source for the opinion or b) to change opinionated language to concrete facts. Consider, for example, this weaselly sentence: "Some people have suggested that John Smith may be a functional illiterate." Or the equally weaselly, "His critics have suggested that John Smith may be a functional illiterate." If a source for the opinion is cited, the readers can decide for themselves how they feel about the source's reliability, e.g.

"Author Ed Jones, in his book John Smith is an Idiot, wrote an open letter to Smith asking, 'John, are you able to read and write on an adult level?'"

Peacock terms are especially hard to deal with without using weasel words. Again, consider the sentence "The Yankees are the greatest baseball team in history." It's tempting to rephrase this in a weaselly way, for example, "Some people think that the Yankees are the greatest baseball team in history." But how can this opinion be qualified with an opinion holder? There are millions of Yankees fans and hundreds of baseball experts who would pick the Yankees as the best team in history. Instead, it would be better to eliminate the middleman of mentioning this opinion entirely, in favor of the facts that have been the vectors of its adoption:

"The New York Yankees have won 26 World Series championships -- almost three times as many as any other team."

This fact suggests that the Yankees are a superlative baseball franchise, rather than simply the greatest baseball team in history. The idea is to let the reader draw their own conclusion about the Yankees' greatness based on the number of World Series the Yankees have won. Objectivity over subjectivity. Dispassion, not bias.

Exceptions

As with any rule of thumb, this guideline should be balanced against other needs for the text, especially the need for brevity and clarity. Some specific exceptions that may need calling out:

• When the belief or opinion is actually the topic of discussion. For example, "In the Middle Ages, most people believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth."
• When the holders of the opinion are too diverse or numerous to qualify. For example, "Some people prefer dogs as pets; others prefer cats."
• When contrasting a minority opinion. For example, "Although Brahms' work is part of the classical music canon, Benjamin Britten has questioned its value." Brahms's importance is almost, but not quite, an undisputed fact; it is not necessary to source the majority opinion when describing the minority one.

See also

• Weasel word
• Misplaced Pages:Avoid peacock terms
• Misplaced Pages:Words to avoid
• Misplaced Pages:Avoid trite expressions
• Misplaced Pages:Guide to writing better articles
• Misplaced Pages:Embrace weasel words

External links