Sweeping statement is inelegant, or contrived to conceal answer (14)
I believe the answer is:
generalisation
'sweeping statement' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'is inelegant or contrived to conceal answer' is the wordplay.
'contrived' indicates anagramming the letters.
'to conceal' is an insertion indicator.
'answer' becomes 'a' (abbreviation eg in Q and A).
'is'+'inelegant'+'or'='isinelegantor'
'isinelegantor' anagrammed gives 'generalistion'.
'generalistion' placed around 'a' is 'GENERALISATION'.
(Other definitions for generalisation that I've seen before include "sweeping statement" , "that has nothing specific to say" .)