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This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Editors should follow it, except where common sense and the occasional exception will improve an article. Before editing this page, please make sure that your revision reflects consensus. |
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This page in a nutshell: A new term does not belong in Wikipedia unless there are reliable sources specifically about the term — not just sources which mention it briefly or use it in passing. |
Neologisms are words and terms that have recently been coined, generally do not appear in any dictionary, but may be used widely or within certain communities. Protologisms are neologisms that have not yet caught on widely. (In fact, "protologism" is a neologism to be avoided.)
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The use of neologisms should be avoided in Wikipedia articles because they are not well understood, are not clearly definable, and will have different meanings to different people. Care should be taken when translating text into English that a term common in the host language does not create a neologism in English. Determining which meaning is the true meaning is not only impossible, it is original research as well—we do not do that here at Wikipedia. Articles that use neologisms should be edited to ensure they conform with the core Wikipedia policies: neutral point of view, no original research, and verifiability. (See Reliable sources for neologisms below for more on supporting the use of neologisms.)
Created terms that add common prefixes or suffixes (such as non– or –ism) to existing words can add clarity, and this may be acceptable in some cases. If not done carefully, however, this practice can result in new terms that are misleading, ambiguous, offensive, or that lend undue weight to a particular point of view. (For instance, adding –ism to a word can sometimes be offensive, implying a belief system or political movement. It may also lead readers to believe there is an established school of thought on a topic where there is not.) Where editors disagree about the use of these neologisms it is best to err on the side of not using them. Editors should generally use established words instead of neologisms, unless the neologism decreases the complexity of the sentence or increases the clarity of the sentence.
Some neologisms and protologisms can be in frequent use and it may be possible to pull together many facts about a particular term and show evidence of its usage on the Internet or even in larger society. It may be natural, then, to feel that Wikipedia should have a page devoted to this new term, but this is not always the case. Some of the reasons why articles on (or titled with) neologisms may not be appropriate are:
In many cases, articles on neologisms get deleted (either via proposed deletion or articles for deletion). Articles on protologisms are usually deleted as these articles are often created in an attempt to use Wikipedia to increase usage of the term.
As Wiktionary's inclusion criteria differ from Wikipedia's, that project may cover neologisms that Wikipedia cannot accept. If you are interested in writing an article on a neologism, you may wish to contribute it to that project instead.
Support for article contents, including the use and meaning of neologisms, must come from reliable sources. Wikipedia is a tertiary source that includes material on the basis of verifiability, not truth. To support the use of (or an article about) a particular term we must cite reliable secondary sources such as books and papers about the term—not books and papers that use the term. (Note that wikis such as Wiktionary are not considered to be a reliable source for this purpose.)
Neologisms that are in wide use—but for which there are no treatments in secondary sources—are not yet ready for use and coverage in Wikipedia. They may be in time, but not yet. The term does not need to be in Wikipedia in order to be a "true" term, and when secondary sources become available, it will be appropriate to create an article on the topic or use the term within other articles.
An editor's personal observations and research (e.g. finding blogs and books that use the term) are insufficient to support use of (or articles on) neologisms because this is analysis and synthesis of primary source material (which is explicitly prohibited by the original research policy). To paraphrase Wikipedia:No original research: If you have research to support the inclusion of a term in the corpus of knowledge that is Wikipedia, the best approach is to arrange to have your results published in a peer-reviewed journal or reputable news outlet and then document your work in an appropriately non-partisan manner.
In a few cases, there will be notable topics which are well-documented in reliable sources, but for which no accepted short-hand term exists. It can be tempting to employ a made-up or non-notable neologism in such a case. Instead, use a title that is a descriptive phrase in plain English, even if this makes for a somewhat long or awkward title.