User:SMcCandlish/Avoid quoting definitions
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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. |
Directly quoting one particular
Standard operating procedure
The normal WP practice is to paraphrase various cited sources on the meaning, and use a combined summary definition in the lead (within the limits of
There's
Pretense that basic dictionaries are good sources in technical contexts
General-audience dictionaries and encyclopedias are not reliable sources on their own for the
Over-reliance on topical but iffy sources
The topical reference works take pains to not copy each others' definitions for copyright reasons as well as distinctiveness-of-our-work reasons. Monograph authors take is as part of their role (as does WP) to paraphrase previously published material and make it more digestible, and they exercise authorial as well as editorial judgement in the process, often introducing novel interpretations that don't necessarily agree with consensus in the field in question (when a monograph author does this, they are in fact a
Journal papers are written for an expert audience, so if they introduce a definition, it's usually a contextually limited or modified one, as part of the methodology description ("For purposes of this research, the term ..."). In humanities journals especially, definitions are often explicitly provided to redefine something, in introduction of a new approach to something. New definitions are one of the many cases in which journal papers are primary sources (the default category for material in such sources, aside from
Recent university-level textbooks (tertiary sources) often provide reliable, field-specific but generalized, definitions of such terminology, and are likely sources to use, but may not reflect nuances specific to sub-fields. The most reliable sources for discipline-specific definitions would be recent systematic and literature reviews in peer-reviewed journals, but they often avoid getting into definitions, which may be contentious within the field in question; such material is consequently difficult to find. They also tend not to define things that professionals in the field learned at university.
Tertiary sourcing is problematic
There are (at least) four problems with
- They date quickly – some information in any of them is already obsolete before the work is published.
- They gloss over details, and do not cover – or sometimes recognize the existence of – usage, views, and facts that are specialized (or in a different specialty).
- They squirrel away related information into separate micro-entries instead of keeping it together, making it easy to miss entries and misunderstand the found ones – they lack context.
- Like Wikipedia itself, they are highly selective in what they include; unlike Wikipedia we have no idea what their inclusion criteria are and what biases may be affecting them.
Continuing to pile on summarative tertiary sources at a Wikipedia article is usually not useful past a certain point of clarification and contextualization. We're supposed to be writing a tertiary work (that, unlike most, cites its sources), based mostly on secondary sources. We are not here to cannibalize and regurgitate other tertiary works, which themselves are just regurgitating other sources they do not identify. That said, there's no problem using such sources, within