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Generalization vs Overgeneralization - What's the difference?

generalization | overgeneralization |

As nouns the difference between generalization and overgeneralization

is that generalization is while overgeneralization is (usually|uncountable) the act of overgeneralizing.

generalization

English

Noun

(en noun)

    • overgeneralization

    English

    Noun

  • (usually, uncountable) The act of overgeneralizing.
  • * {{quote-news, year=1995, date=July 7, author=Gary Houston, title=Everything's Unique, work=Chicago Reader citation
    • , passage="George Orwell put the easy use of words like 'unique' under the headings of 'pretentious diction' and overgeneralization . }}
  • * {{quote-news, year=1988, date=November 11, author=Andrew Goodwin, title=Reading: The Cultural Crash of '89, work=Chicago Reader citation
    • , passage=Fortunately for all of us, the rhetoric of both cultural pessimism and postmodernism contains more than its fair share of exaggeration and overgeneralization . }}
  • (countable) An instance of overgeneralizing.
  • *{{quote-journal, 2000, date=January 28, Keith Kloor, RESTORATION ECOLOGY:Returning America's Forests to Their 'Natural' Roots, Science citation
    • , passage=It's an overgeneralization to say that everywhere you look is the hand of man in the presettlement era," says Thomas Swetnam, a fire ecologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson. }}