A limitations statement is the part of a study where the author sets out what the work cannot support — sample constraints, measurement weaknesses, confounds left unresolved, the range beyond which the findings should not be carried. It exists because claims outrun evidence unless something holds them back. The convention is widespread and in many journals expected, but it is a norm of scholarly manners rather than a defined object: what belongs in it, how candid it should be, and whether it functions as genuine self-assessment or as defensive ritual are all matters on which practice varies and critics comment. Instructions to authors may require the section, but each journal speaks only for itself.
Why this entry carries no source list. This lexicon cites an official primary source wherever one exists, and says so plainly where none does. No body governs this term. There is no standards organisation for it, no register, and no text whose authors could claim to have settled its meaning. Methods literature describes practice and argues about it; a citation to one author would dress a position in a live argument as a rule, which would mislead more than silence does. What follows is the convention as it is actually used, with the disagreements named rather than smoothed over.