Wikipedia:Avoid academic boosterism
This is an neutral point of view policy. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
This page in a nutshell: Do not praise an academic institution; describe it using neutral language and verifiable facts. |
Wikipedia articles on colleges, universities, and other academic institutions are often written by editors who currently or previously attended the institution or who work for the institution. Editors are often motivated by
Just as there is no single, indisputably preeminent college or university, there is no single metric which definitively establishes the quality of a college or university. Every institution is different and its Wikipedia article should emphasize these differences by summarizing what an academic institution has and does rather than serving as a shrine to its various accolades and superlatives. Notable distinctions and recognition have their place in the article, but they
In general
Review the
- Visit the website for the archives to expand the information on its history, campus, and traditions
- Use the fact book or common data set to include more information on the student body and faculty
- Incorporate information from university reports, faculty handbooks, or course catalogs to describe the administrative organization, academic programs, and research centers
- Review the Alumni Association's website to include additional notable alumni
- Search news archives like Google News or LexisNexis for historical coverage of the university
In the United States, organizations like the National Science Foundation, Carnegie Foundation, Chronicle of Higher Education, and National Center for Education Statistics collect and publish authoritative information about colleges and universities.
Problems and solutions
Avoid vague terms of praise
- "…is a highly competitive university…"
- "…is a prestigious private liberal arts college…"
- "...is one of the most selective graduate schools..."
Boosterism is particularly unpalatable to some Wikipedians when describing institutions whose "elite" status is already widely acknowledged elsewhere. For instance, in an opening summary paragraph, simply noting that a university is "in the Ivy League" or is the "main" or "flagship" campus for a larger university system succinctly establishes that the university is prestigious.
Assert facts, not opinions
- "…is one of the best universities in the world…"
- "…is widely recognized as a leader in…"
- "...is one of the premier institutions on the West coast..."
Substantiate claims
- "…is consistently rated among the best…"
- "…has an impressive record in X…"
- "…is a highly selective college…"
Omit original research
- "…was ranked third among public universities in X…"
- "…11 of the 15 programs offered have been ranked in the top 10 over the past 9 years…"
These are both examples of potential
Do not synthesize claims
- "…is widely acknowledged as the preeminent university by most university rankings"
- "…is historically recognized as the top university in A by X, Y, and Z."
Avoid undue weight
- "State University is the #3 ranked public university by Magazine X. It is a public research university located in X,Y,Z."
Do not give
Do not parse rankings
- "State University ranked 34th in publication X which only considered Y and Z. However, it ranked 3rd in publication A which considers B and C."
Rankings should be neutrally worded without modifiers or disclaimers. Similarly, do not exclude notable rankings simply because they are inconveniently low or you disagree with their methodology. An article about a university is not the appropriate venue to debate the merits of various rankings' respective methodologies. If a reader wants to know about the methodology, they can follow the citation that should already accompany any ranking or the wikilink to the Wikipedia article describing that ranking in more detail.
It's not a score board or horse race
- "…has 65 Laureates, 102 Award Winners, 165 acres of land, 72 academic programs, 15% admissions rate, 13 national championships, …..."
- "…has the second-largest student body, third-largest campus, fifteenth-largest faculty, seventh-largest research expenditures, sixth-most applicants, second-most award recipients …"
- "Compared to X, Y has a larger student body, campus, faculty, research budget and lower admissions rate and failure rate."
It is tempting to replace claims of prestige or academic excellence with a cascade of related or unrelated facts intended to generate the same impression. While this is a large improvement over the vague claim, remember that a university article's
Likewise, an encyclopedia article is not the appropriate venue to play out intercollegiate rivalries over who has more and better: describe information and statistics in absolute terms rather than relative to your rival institution(s) or in abstract
Be concise, precise, and honest
Claims that an institution "places highly" in rankings are just as vague as claims that it is "prestigious", "highly selective" and "excellent", and are more dishonest in that they seem to cite an authoritative source. Limit rankings to a single section rather than spreading them throughout the article and be sure to include a comprehensive cross-section of
Some popular rankings such as "Best Colleges" by U.S. News and World Report and "America's Best Colleges" by Forbes rely on undergraduate-only data and are only intended to rank or classify the undergraduate program, not the university as a whole. In this case, it is inaccurate to say that "University X is the 27th best university" when UX's undergraduate program is actually ranked 27th.
Other examples of boosterism
- Among the University's highly-ranked schools…
- …is one of the best colleges in …
- No public or private university in the (region) can match the breadth and quality of the university's research endeavors
- [The university] is the one of the most highly-regarded institutions in the region..."
- [The college] is considered one of the premier institutions of higher learning in the [country]
- ...is the most selective in...
See also
- WP:UNI– WikiProject Universities and Colleges
- WP:UNIGUIDE– Style guidelines specific to colleges and universities
- WP:ADVOCACY– Do not use WP to advocate a POV
- WP:PEACOCK– Avoid peacock terms
- WP:WEASEL– Avoid weasel words
- WP:NPOV– Neutral point of view
- Template:Booster– Available to flag articles for boosterism
- Template:Infobox US university ranking – Infobox to concisely summarize major publications' university rankings