a flaw / flawed

If research, strategies, beliefs etc are flawed, it means that there’s something basically wrong with them A flaw is some kind of mistake that means that something is not perfect. So, for example, if a diamond has a flaw, it means that it’s not pure and its value is much less. A flawed argument is the same – it contains some mistake which means that it’s ineffective. The word is often used with ‘logic’, ‘argument’ ‘policy’, ‘analysis’ etc and normally means that the report, policy etc needs to be done again because it’s not good enough. You need to make sure that your academic work isn’t flawed – the most common flaws include irrelevance (not answering the question), ambiguity (unclear arguments), incoherence (arguments not connected together), poor interpretation (arguments not supported by evidence), plagiarism (copying from the work of others).

Her argument was interesting but flawed as her conclusions were not supported by her own evidence.

Her research suffered from one basic flaw – a lack of attention to detail.

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