Originally posted by Christoph

Just another name for playing an arpeggio across the strings.

That's not correct actually.
Yes, you can sweep an arpeggio, but sweeps aren't always arpeggios.
The idea behind sweep picking is to play as many notes, with as little pick movement as possible.
When sweeping an arpeggio, you play and fret each note seperately in one fluent motion, while making sure every note sounds seperately.
Sweeping can also be used in, for example, 3-notes per string scales, what you do then is 'down - up - down - down - up -down-down -....'


Greetz, TK