Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words

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Shortcut: WP:WEASEL WP:AWT WP:AWW

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, lending them the force of authority without letting the reader decide whether 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, and the lack of given sources also implies a verifiability issue. Either a source for the statement should be found, or the statement should be removed.

The emergence of weasel-worded statements often has its roots in biased or normative statements, e.g. "Montreal is the best city in the world". Often, people who are convinced that some statement or other is true naturally want to see it mentioned in the articles where it is relevant; however, statements such as these tend to jump out at the reader as obvious opinion-stated-as-fact and quickly get rooted out. The problem of the weasel words starts when an editor realizes this and attempts to remedy the situation by modifying the statement to at least admit that it is not necessarily factual, e.g. "Some people say Montreal is the best city in the world. "

At first glance, this rephrasing appears to have solved the problem - clearly "some people say" does not equate "it is a fact that". Yet it remains uninformative in a very fundamental sense, as the context of this statement is crucial to comprehending its significance, and none is provided. A few simple questions you could ask this editor strongly illustrate what the problem with that is:

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?
...long said to be..." Any proof?

The answers to these questions might very well strongly imply that in essence the statement contains no semblance of neutrality, verifiability, significance or any encyclopedic quality whatsoever - that "some people" stands for, e.g., three enthusiastic travel agents encountered by this single editor in 1998. The inclusion of unsourced statements in any text that aspires to be authoritative implicitly vouches for the unknown sources of these statements, and this can easily be exploited to spread hearsay, personal opinion and even propaganda under the guise of legitimate encyclopedic content. As the spirit of Wikipedia draws very strongly from the neutrality and verifiability policies, both of which are acutely compromised by this practice, editors are encouraged to Avoid Weasel Words.

1 Examples
2 Other problems
3 Improving weasel-worded statements
4 Exceptions
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Examples

Words and short phrases that make a statement difficult or impossible to prove or disprove, are surely weasel words:

Some humans practice cannibalism. (True, but useless and misrepresentative)
Many humans practice cannibalism. (Cannot be disproved: "many" could just as well be three)
- Throughout human history, there have been many individuals with three arms.
Most scientists believe that there is truth
- "Most" can range from any amount more than 50% up to 99%
- A "scientist" could be anyone
- The statement gives no necessary contextual data:
  - How the individual beliefs were counted
  - Whether the statement concerns all scientists or only those presently alive
- The meaning of "truth" varies
"Possibly", "may", "could", "perhaps" and the like

The following examples often qualify for weasel words by vaguely attributing a statement to no source in particular:

"According to some (reports, studies, rumors, sources…) …"
"Actually, Allegedly, Apparently, Arguably, Clearly, Plainly, Obviously, Undoubtedly, Supposedly ..."
"(Contrary, as opposed) to (many, most, popular, ...) ..."
"(Correctly, Justly, Properly, ...) or not, ..."
"Could it be that..."
"(Critics, detractors, fans, experts, many people, scholars, historians, ...) contend, say that ..."
"It (could be, should be, may be, has been, is) (argued, speculated, remembered, …) …"
"(Mainstream, serious, the majority of, a small group of ...) (scholars, scientists, researchers, experts, scientific community...) ..."
"It has been proven that…"
"Research has shown..."
Personifications like "Science says ..." or "Medicine believes ..."
"There has been criticism that ..."
"It turns out..."

It is acceptable to use some of these phrases, if they are accompanied by a citation that supports the claim, for example: "Research by Wong et al, 1996, has shown that Rabies can be cured by acupuncture".

And at the bottom of the page:

W.F. Wong, A. Einstein (1996). "Acupuncture: An effective cure for Rabies". J. Rabid Med. 345: 33-67.

Some weasel words do not degrade an article in and of themselves; for example, some introductory words like "clearly" mean "it follows that" - and are often legitimately used to this extent when the statement following them does follow from previous well-established statements. Listed above are likely culprits, not phrases to be removed on sight. Still, many of them are almost certain to pose a problem: consider "could it be that...", which hardly employs the encyclopedic tone and is all but an alarm bell for oncoming original research.

[edit] Other problems

Aside from the interference with Wikipedia's neutral point of view, usage of weasel words often begets other issues and problems in the text. Some of these are:

Wordiness. Weasel words are sentence stuffing; they make sentences longer without carrying any information.
Passive voice. Though it is in principle possible to make weasel-worded statements in the active voice, in practice it is often much more convenient to resort to the passive voice, e.g. "It has been said that...". Though the passive voice is syntactically correct, articles suffering from a massive infestation of weasel words can have their entire tone and flow thrown out of balance by this. Strunk and White recommend against the overuse of the passive voice in their Elements of Style, calling it "less direct, less bold, and less concise" than the active voice; though the use of the passive voice is not in itself incorrect and can be appropriate, too much of it can obstruct what might otherwise be Brilliant Prose.
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.
Implicit endorsement of faulty logic. As mentioned above, the word "clearly" and other words of its kind are often used to tell the reader that some established statements have brought conclusion to an argument or discussion. In some cases, this is all but true; in many others, it does alternate explanations and facts that may have been ignored an injustice. In cases such as these it is often useful to mentally substitute the claim of "clearly" with the chain of reasoning that led to the statement it qualifies and thoroughly consider whether it truly is sound, and whether perhaps substantial counter-arguments exist. Similarly, sentences like Many people think...- aside from leading to questions such as just how many is many- often implicitly endorse bandwagon fallacies, as their purpose is not to inform the reader about the fact that some people hold this opinion or other, but lend credibility to the statement that follows.
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. 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, leading to bloated and incoherent coverage of controversial issues.

[edit] 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. For less drastic cases, the {{weasel word}} tag (^{[Who says this?]}) can be added directly to the phrase in question; same as the {{fact}} tag.

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 "Manchester United is the greatest football team in history." It's tempting to rephrase this in a weaselly way, for example, "Some people think that Manchester United is the greatest football team in history." But how can this opinion be qualified with an opinion holder? There are millions of Manchester Utd fans and hundreds of football experts who would pick Manchester Utd 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 support the assertion:

"Manchester United has won 6 Premier League titles and a domestic and european triple -- almost two times as many as any other team."

This fact suggests that Manchester Utd is a superlative football team, rather than simply the greatest football team in history. The idea is to let the reader draw their own conclusion about Manchester Utds' greatness based on the number of Domestic and European trophies they have won. Objectivity over subjectivity. Dispassion, not bias.

[edit] 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's 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 if it is obvious which is which.