User:SMcCandlish/Avoid quoting definitions
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Directly quoting one particular reliable source (or ostensibly reliable one) on how to define any term of art (in the sciences, law, philosophy, the arts, a technical field, or whatever) term is something we almost always avoid, because attempts to define such things in monographs, papers, and topical dictionaries and encyclopedias virtually never coincide in their wording (unless directly quoting in their own right). A very common form of PoV-pushing on WP is the attempt to insert one particular quoted definition into an article, especially the lead, and it's a undue weight problem as well as PoV, often a sign of advocacy / soapboxing / "great wrongs" activism. It's an attempt to artificially narrow the scope and wording of the article to whatever suits one editor and their cherry-picked source; this is a form of original research.
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This is just a brain-dump from a thread, expanded without any paring down. I have to recycle a variant of this argument too frequently to not save it, though. I'll put it at WP:DEFQUOTE eventually. |