Wikipedia:Example cruft

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Shortcuts WP:GENERALIZE WP:EXAMPLES WP:EXCEPTION WP:EXAMPLEFARM

This page in a nutshell: Writing an encyclopedic entry about a subject will involve generalizations. Avoid the temptation to engage in original research by finding every example of a phenomenon, or every exception to a phenomenon.

Encyclopedia articles are a summary of accepted knowledge on a given subject. Making an appropriate summary involves describing theories and observations that come from mainstream scholarship and news. Naturally, every theory can be demonstrated using examples or counter-examples. However, this tends to make articles less readable and reliable because mentioning too many examples, or exploring an individual example in an excessive level of detail, takes the article farther away from its original point.