Talk:After America

Problematic wording?

While the article is tagged for having 'weasel words', I'm not sure what specifically is the issue. The major flaw of the page, in my eyes, is that there's no critical reviewer quoted who takes issue with the author's main point. Steyn claims that the U.S. national debt will lead to collapse, yet the fact that a decade or so has gone by with no such cataclysm does seem to indicate that the more Paul Krugman-esque point that America has a wide swath of economic options available in terms of borrowing (being able to run up the debt for some time if done so through worthy social investment)... well, Steyn may be dead, flat wrong. I'm more than willing to include this criticism in the article, but the rub is that I can't find a review of the book making that assertion. Are they out there? CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 18:58, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

CoffeeWithMarkets, I guess "Weasel words" wasn't the best term for it, but basically what I meant is that there are some spots in the article as it stands that seem kind of problematic to me. Here are some examples:

• "somewhat of a repudiation" this sounds like an opinionated statement. Even if this is in a source, according to who is this true?
• "Although explicitly forecasting despair and destruction, labeling the "impending collapse" in America about to occur "supersized", Steyn asserts that like many doomsayers he genuinely hopes for and seeks to work for a better future." This is the main kind of content I found slightly problematic. Although it definitely states that the statement is the opinion of the author, it's almost trying to argue for that opinion (even if this isn't the intention here). Words like "assert" and "explicit" makes this seem like an argument for the author. I would rephrase this as "in his book, Steyn argues that the 'impending collapse in America' is inevitable, but that he still hopes for a better future." It just uses more bland language, which while boring, is more appropriate of an encyclopedia article.

I would recommend that you rearrange the section on the book into a plot summary. If the information presented in the book is out of order or not just in a clear summary section (currently it is mixed with a "background" section), the commentary of the author and the content of the Encyclopedia article can be too intertwined and hard to separate. Hope this helps. Let me know if you need me to provide more examples or if you disagree. Sam-2727 (talk) 21:06, 1 April 2020 (UTC)