Quoting out of context
Quoting out of context (sometimes referred to as contextomy or quote mining) is an informal fallacy in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning.[1] Context may be omitted intentionally or accidentally, thinking it to be non-essential. As a fallacy, quoting out of context differs from false attribution, in that the out of context quote is still attributed to the correct source.
Arguments based on this fallacy typically take two forms:
- As a straw man argument, it involves quoting an opponent out of context in order to misrepresent their position (typically to make it seem more simplistic or extreme) in order to make it easier to refute. It is common in politics.
- As an appeal to authority, it involves quoting an authority on the subject out of context, in order to misrepresent that authority as supporting some position.[2]
Contextomy
Contextomy refers to the selective excerpting of words from their original
In advertising
One of the most familiar examples of contextomy is the ubiquitous "review blurb" in advertising. The lure of media exposure associated with being "blurbed" by a major studio may encourage some critics to write positive reviews of mediocre movies. However, even when a review is negative overall, studios have few reservations about excerpting it in a way that misrepresents the critic's opinion.
For example, the ad copy for New Line Cinema's 1995 thriller
In the United States, there is no specific law against misleading movie blurbs, beyond existing regulation over
Examples of out of context quotations
- The creation–evolution controversy. Complaints about the practice predate known use of the term: Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote in his famous 1973 essay "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution":[15]
Their [Creationists'] favorite sport is stringing together quotations, carefully and sometimes expertly taken out of context, to show that nothing is really established or agreed upon among evolutionists. Some of my colleagues and myself have been amused and amazed to read ourselves quoted in a way showing that we are really antievolutionists under the skin.
- Entertainment: with The Times reporting its frequent abuse by promoters with, for example, "I couldn't help feeling that, for all the energy, razzmatazz and technical wizardry, the audience had been shortchanged" being pared down to "having 'energy, razzmatazz and technical wizardry'".[16]
- Travel: The Guardian ran an article in May 2013 with the subheading "Sri Lanka has the hotels, the food, the climate and the charm to offer the perfect holiday, says Ruaridh Nicoll. It's just a pity about the increasingly despotic government".[17] A highly edited version of this piece was immediately posted on the official Sri Lankan news portal under the heading "Sri Lanka has everything to offer perfect holiday" [sic].[18]
- Know-Nothing Party" because, as Lincoln explained, "they are mostly my old political and personal friends", while omitting to mention that the remainder of the letter describes Lincoln's break with these former Whig Party associates of his, and his anticipation of "painful necessity of my taking an open stand against them."[19]
- Alternative medicine: Analysis of the evidence submitted by the British Homeopathic Association to the House of Commons Evidence Check on Homeopathy contains many examples of quote mining, where the conclusions of scientific papers were selectively quoted to make them appear to support the efficacy of homeopathic treatment. For example, one paper's conclusion was reported as "There is some evidence that homeopathic treatments are more effective than placebo" without the immediately following caveat "however, the strength of this evidence is low because of the low methodological quality of the trials. Studies of high methodological quality were more likely to be negative than the lower quality studies."[20]
See also
- Cherry picking
- Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed § Charles Darwin quotation issue
- FactCheck.org
- Half-truth
- Prooftext
- Recontextualization
Notes
- ISBN 978-0-312-08479-0.
- ^ Curtis, Gary (1981-03-26). "Logical Fallacy: Quoting Out of Context". Logical Fallacies. Archived from the original on 2023-10-30. Retrieved 2023-12-06.
- They thought they were free: The Germans, 1933–45. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.
- .
- S2CID 144496678.
- ^ Reiner, L. (1996). "Why Movie Blurbs Avoid Newspapers." Editor & Publisher: The Fourth Estate, 129, 123, citing:
- Gleiberman, Owen. (1995, September 22). "Se7en" (film review). Entertainment Weekly, p. 45.
- Turan, Kenneth., (1997, August 27). Hoodlum: A fight for control of Harlem. Los Angeles Times, p. 8.
- ^ Sancton, Julian (March 19, 2010). "Good Blurbs from Bad Reviews: Repo Men, The Bounty Hunter, Diary of a Wimpy Kid". Vanity Fair. Retrieved February 28, 2013.
- ^ Bialik, Carl (January 6, 2008). "The Best Worst Blurbs of 2007: The 10 most egregious misquotes, blurb whores, and other movie-ad sins of 2007". Gelf Magazine. Retrieved February 28, 2013.
- ^ Beam, Chris (Nov 25, 2009). "'(Best) Film Ever!!!' How Do Movie Blurbs Work?". Slate. Retrieved February 28, 2013.
- ^ Age banding, Philip Pullman, The Guardian, 7 June 2008
- ^ "Excellent! Theatres forced to withdraw misleading reviews", Amol Rajan, The Independent, 29 May 2008
- ISBN 0-19-515742-7. Retrieved 2007-03-09.
In the face of the extraordinary and often highly practical twentieth-century progress of the life sciences under the unifying concepts of evolution, [creationist] "science" consists of quote-mining—minute searching of the biological literature—including outdated literature—for minor slips and inconsistencies and for polemically promising examples of internal arguments. These internal disagreements, fundamental to the working of all natural science, are then presented dramatically to lay audiences as evidence of the fraudulence and impending collapse of "Darwinism."
- ISBN 0-520-24926-7p. 14
- ^ Quote-Mining Comes to Ohio Archived 2007-10-03 at the Wayback Machine, Glenn Branch
- S2CID 207358177; reprinted in Zetterberg, J. Peter, ed. (1983), Evolution versus Creationism, Phoenix, Arizona: ORYX Press
- ^ "A helluva show. Really. It was hell", Jack Malvern, The Times, July 24, 2006
- ^ Sri Lanka: island in the storm, Ruaridh Nicoll, The Guardian, May 5, 2013
- ^ "Sri Lanka has everything to offer perfect holiday". The Guardian. Archived 2013-07-29 at the Wayback Machine, Priu, Sri Lanka, May 5, 2013
- ^ "Lincoln the Devil", James M. MacPherson, The New York Times, August 27, 2000
- ^ "My Response to the British Homeopathic Association", Martin Robbins, The Lay Scientist, February 9, 2010
Further reading
- Boller, Paul F. Jr. (1967). Quotemanship: The Use and Abuse of Quotations for Polemical and Other Purposes. ISBN 978-1-161-40918-5.
External links
- The dictionary definition of contextomy at Wiktionary