selective.

Including or affecting some things while leaving others out.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• selective attention
• selective reporting

On the page

Selective reporting exaggerated the apparent consistency of the findings.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic / formal. Forms: Comparative more selective; superlative most selective when comparison is meaningful. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: analysis, evaluation, qualification. Commonness: moderately common.