User:Smuckola/Mistakes

Many euphemisms, overexplanations, enticements, word-padding verbosity, and rhetorical devices are bad habits in academia and popular culture, including in the encyclopedia's sources in journalism and authorship. The encyclopedia is to be informed, but not defined, by this. They are encyclopedic only in quotations if sensible or necessary, without relying on local knowledge or alienating the global community. We do not sell or entice readers on reading the encyclopedia beyond the overall quality of content, the format and presentation, and the lead summary sections. An encyclopedia assumes a level of interest and competency, which is inherently interesting without bombast. Images, quotations, citations, and situations from the outside world are sufficient.


 * The Super "And": When a normal "and" just isn't cool enough, then "also", "while", and "as well as" are forced in as a Super "And".
 * de-also-ification: Many editors adding many tidbits across time may produce cruft of "also". Also, "also" can appear in the form of "in addition to", "additionally", and the gibberish "as well as". The first thing is rarely "well", and the second is not as "well" as the first. These can usually be deleted, or changed to "and". These are overexplanations or salesmanship to convey that "the sentence, paragraph, or article hasn't finished yet so you should keep reading". The only thing that should promote readership of the article is its lead summary section.
 * de-while-ing: "While" is not a synonym for "and". It is not a dramatic comparison. It means concurrency, so "X debuted while Y will come later" is nonsense.
 * "despite": Spite is generally emotional, but otherwise unencyclopedic. There is rarely any encyclopedic involvement of emotion, especially spite, and it should be patently obvious or corroborated by the reliable source. For example, meaning "in order to spite". "Despite" is not a synonym for "and", "though", or "anyway". This is often one of the dramatic comparisons. "X happened. Despite this, Y happened." is the same junk as "X happened. Yeah, so anyways, can you believe it, like I was saying, Y happened".
 * "felt" or "decided": This is not a synonym for "said". Feelings are not generally encyclopedic, or even relevant to an encyclopedia, unless of the subject actually involving feelings or as a necessary part of a quotation. Using prose to describe a statement or decision as "felt" is an illogical WP:NPOV projection by the editor or the source.
 * "decided": The point is not the thought but the action, unless literally only a decision was made in a notable way but without any action. This includes court decisions, or some precipitous decision that is necessarily detached in time from its subsequent action.
 * "As the name suggests" or "by the same name": Suggestions, redundancies, counter-redundancies, and filled pauses are illogical and unencyclopedic. This is an unnecessary attempt at elegant variation. There is nothing wrong with saying the name twice, and wikilinking with the principle of least astonishment (WP:PLA). Either say it or don't.
 * "title" is not a synonym for "game", "movie", or "application". Video games are not their titles, and titles are not games. This junked usage of "title" apparently comes from mass media marketing, which maintains lists or rosters of titles of movies or games, such as a seasonal pre-release lineup which is actually a list of titles. It morphs into an illogically euphemistic attempt at elegant variation in journalism about the media industry.
 * "a number of" is "several" or "many". If it's a number, then what is the number? Don't tease what is not a mystery.
 * "saw": Inanimate things don't possess vision. "The 1980s saw many new film releases." becomes "In the 1980s, many films were released."