Talk:Quoting out of context

Quote mining

I don't believe that quote mining and taking quotes out of context are the same thing. I think that quote mining is a pejorative term for looking for lots of quotes from your opponents to support your point of view rather than building an argument yourself. Philip J. Rayment 11:41, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

Agreed. My first draft was hasty, sloppy, and inaccurate. :-( --Ed Poor 11:47, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

Aren't first drafts supposed to be hasty, sloppy, and inaccurate. :-) Philip J. Rayment 11:54, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

'attempts to "use a person's words" against them'

Taking a quote out of context is not synonymous with attempting to use a person's words against them. You can do the latter without taking a quote out of context, and taking a quote out of context is usually (in my opinion) inadvertent (although possibly due to carelessness, ideologically blinkers, etc.), not something that you attempt to do. Philip J. Rayment 11:41, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

Agreed. My first draft was hasty, sloppy, and inaccurate. :-( --Ed Poor 11:47, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

Aren't first drafts supposed to be hasty, sloppy, and inaccurate. :-) Philip J. Rayment 11:54, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

I think quote mining is an example of taking quotations out of context, but I don't think we should use the phrase in this article, at least not in the lead, because it is not in general use outside of a narrow arena... and because that narrow arena is the locale for some fighting in this neighborhood. The phrase seems to have originated in the USENET group talk.origins, and is used almost exclusively by evolutionists as a name for what they say is a dishonest tactic widely used by creationists. Dpbsmith 11:56, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

I'm juggling several half-formed ideas in my mind here. The term discrediting attack comes to mind. "Reagan was a buffoon, Coulter is biased and ignorant, Republicans and conservatives are heartless racist pigs, etc."

Coulter wrote:

• Cultlike in their behavior, vicious in their attacks on Republicans, and in almost complete control of mainstream national media, the left has been merciless in portraying US conservatives as dumb, racist, power hungry, homophobic and downright scary.

I gotta go take a walk, but I trust you'll have this whole thing sewn up by the time I get back. :-) --Ed Poor 12:03, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

Ah, well, it sounds like you meant to write a different article then one on quotation out of context... which is the concept I've been working on.

A request to editors

(This is also in the form of an HTML comment within the page itself)

Editors: please resist the temptation to transform this into a long list of examples, and, in particular, avoid examples that relate to live political or Conservapedian disputes. Only a relatively small number of examples are needed. They should be chosen as most clearly illustrating the points being made. This is best done with non-controversial examples. Controversial examples are less clear, because different readers will perceive what they are reading in different ways; in a controversial topic, what one person sees as a "quotation out of context" may be seen by another as perfectly fair.

In general, real examples are better than invented ones. Thanks. Dpbsmith 13:17, 21 April 2007 (EDT)

A good example (in my opinion) is the quote about Darwin and the evolution of the eye that creationists have used (quoted in the quote box below). They have acknowledged that it is out of context (so should not be used)[1] (thus it should be a non-controversial example), and it is a good example of how a quote can be taken out of context inadvertently, because the immediate context does not indicate a problem; the problem arises later in the chapter as explained here:

Charles Darwin himself realized that it seemed incredible that evolutionary processes had to explain human vision. He said:

'To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.'

Yet, later on in the same chapter of his book, he explained how he believed it evolved anyway and that the ‘absurdity’ was illusory.[2]

Philip J. Rayment 18:58, 21 April 2007 (EDT)