“The practice of quoting out of context, sometimes referred to as “contextomy” or “quote mining“, is a logical fallacy and type of false attribution in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning.[1]
Arguments based on this fallacy typically take two forms. As a straw man argument, which is frequently found in politics, it involves quoting an opponent out of context in order to misrepresent their position (typically to make it seem more simplistic or extreme) in order to make it easier to refute. As an appeal to authority, it involves quoting an authority on the subject out of context, in order to misrepresent that authority as supporting some position.[2]“
Quote mines are usually pretty easy to detect which is why guilty parties usually try to obscure their sources by not citing them properly. Fortunately is easy enough to simply copy and past chunks of text into Google in order to figure out where they are coming from. The standard Itinerant Lurker quote mine check is that anyone quoting an “authority” should be able to explain:
1. The context – can they provide at least the surrounding paragraph of text or at least a generally accurate summary of what, specifically, the author was referring to?
2. The Date – on quote mines this is almost never given since they are usually stripped from extremely outdated quotes
3. Actual reference information
If you can’t provide the above information then, quote mine or not, you should not be trying to use someone else’s authority to advance your point. Go back, learn your material, cite your sources, and return with a well-informed argument.
Itinerant Lurker 