Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words

Weasel words are words or statements that seemingly support statements without attributing opinions to verifiable sources. They give the force of authority to a phrase or a sentence without letting the reader decide whether the source of the opinion is reliable. If a statement can't stand without weasel words, it lacks neutral point of view; either a source for the statement should be found, or the statement should be removed. If a statement can stand without weasel words, they may be undermining its neutrality and the statement may be better off standing without them.

For example, "Hazlet, New Jersey is the nicest 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 Hazlet, New Jersey, is the nicest city in the world."

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

• Who says that?
• 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 do not really give a neutral point of view; they just spread hearsay, or couch personal opinion in vague, indirect syntax. It is better to put a name and a face on an opinion than to assign an opinion to an anonymous source.

Examples

• "Some people say..."
• "Some argue..."
• "Contrary to many..."
• "Research has shown..."
• "...is claimed to be..."
• "...is thought to be..."
• "It is believed that..."
• "It is rumored that..."
• "Some feel that..."
• "Critics/experts say that..."
• "It is claimed..."
• "It has been reported that..."
• "It is generally considered that..."
• Anthropomorphisms like "Science says ..." or "Medicine believes ..."

Other general examples include:

• Use of "clearly" or "obviously". If it does not need to be said, do not say it. If it does, do not apologize for it by using words like "clearly".
• Improper use of "some", "many", "all", "most" As a rule, ad populum arguments should be avoided, such as "as most Wikipedians agree..."

Other problems

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

• Uninformative. The purpose of an encyclopedia is to spread accurate and useful information. Weasel words are neither accurate nor informative.
• Wordiness. Weasel words are generally sentence stuffing; they make sentences longer without carrying any information.
• Passive voice. Certain 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, though AP Stylebook and the Chicago Manual of Style contradict Strunk & White on this point.
  • It fails to identify who stands behind the opinions or actions it describes. In sentences such as "it has been said he has had a shady past", or "[noun] is thought to be [noun/adjective]", the writer uses the passive voice to construct a convincing-sounding appeal to authority without naming the authority in question.
• Unnecessary Debate. 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?
• Repetition. Overuse of weasel words can lead to very monotonous articles due to the constraints they impose on sentence structure. For example: "Some argue... [..] Others respond... [..] Still others point out that [..]" This is poor writing.
• Time sense. There is an "as of" guideline to help with articles that incorrectly use "recently" and "currently". The {{When}} template can be used where an editor wants to bring attention to a vague time reference in an article.

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 (), the {{Who?}} tag () or the {{Which?}} tag () (all of which include an internal wikilink to this page) 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 (attribution) or b) to change opinionated language to concrete facts (substantiate it).

Peacock terms are especially hard to deal with without using weasel words. Consider the sentence "The Yankees are the greatest baseball team in history." It is tempting to rephrase this in a weaselly way, for example, "The Yankees are considered by many to be 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 favour of the facts that support the assertion:

• "The New York Yankees have won 26 World Series championships—about three times as many as any other team."

This fact suggests that the Yankees are a superlative baseball franchise, rather than simply the US baseball team that has won most often. The idea is to let the readers draw their own conclusions about the Yankees based on the number of World Series the Yankees have won. Such a strategy favours objectivity over subjectivity and dispassion over 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 orbited 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. "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's not necessary to source the majority opinion when describing the minority one.

See also

• Category:Articles with weasel words
• Weasel word
• Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms
• Wikipedia:Words to avoid
• Avoid trite expressions, be concise
• Avoid speculation
• Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles
• Wikipedia:Embrace weasel words