Reality Audit · specialisations
Audit Types
The audit types use the same methodological foundation while directing examination toward different kinds of frames, claims, documentation, and practice.
Function and purpose
An audit type is not an independent theory. It is a specialisation of Reality Audit defining what is examined, which distinctions are decisive, what documentation is required, and which error or capture patterns may be relevant.
Every audit type must follow the same foundational rule: the conclusion must not be built into the mandate. Language Audit must not presuppose language capture, Identity Audit must not presuppose identity capture, and Model Audit must not presuppose that the model is false or misleading.
Selecting an audit type does not reduce a matter to one dimension. A concrete case may require several interacting audit types, but each finding must still be tied to the object and grounds it actually concerns.
Common structure
Each audit type is built on the same operational spine. This makes findings comparable without making different audit objects artificially identical.
Specialisation occurs in the questions, sources, characteristic failure modes, and thresholds for particular risk assessments—not by suspending the Standard's requirements of traceability, contradiction, and proportionality.
- S1
Object and mandate
Defines which relation, claim, frame, practice, or decision is being examined and what falls outside the inquiry.
- S2
Decisive distinctions
Identifies concepts that must remain distinct, such as self and identity, model and actuality, or authority and grounds.
- S3
Grounds and counter-material
Defines the sources, observations, documents, actions, and alternative explanations relevant to the audit.
- S4
Audit questions
Translates the Standard into concrete questions for the audit type without predetermining the answer.
- S5
Findings and confidence
Classifies what is supported, partly supported, unresolved, insufficient, erroneous, or connected to capture risk.
- S6
Correction and review
Links a bounded finding to the least intrusive defensible change and a visible test of its effect.
Audit-type register
The register presents the planned family of audit types. Only documents published in the new structure are linked as current working documents.
Status concerns the document, not the importance of the subject or whether earlier working material exists.
Boundaries and overlap
Audit types overlap because language, identity, models, representations, systems, and authority operate together. Overlap must not be resolved by treating every audit as the same audit.
The decisive type is the one that best answers to the concrete question and the finding to be supported. Other types may be used as supporting or separate sub-audits.
| Audit A | Audit B | Decisive distinction |
|---|---|---|
| Language Audit | Representation Audit | Language Audit primarily tests concepts, reference, and claim; Representation Audit tests selection, form, medium, and the relation between the representation and the represented matter. |
| Identity Audit | Role or Authority Audit | Identity Audit tests reduction of person or self to category; Role and Authority Audit tests mandate, function, competence, and decision power. |
| Model Audit | System Audit | Model Audit tests representation, assumption, and assignment; System Audit tests operative rules, incentives, responsibility, and institutional corrigibility. |
| Authority Audit | Practice Audit | Authority Audit tests the right and grounds to speak or decide; Practice Audit tests whether action and effect answer to claim, responsibility, and purpose. |
Capture risk as a possible finding
Each audit type has its own risk pattern, but none has capture as a foregone conclusion. A frame may be necessary, useful, and open to correction without being capturing.
Capture risk should be recorded only where concrete indications show that the frame may be beginning to govern what may count as grounds. Capture identified requires the stricter threshold in the Capture Risk document.
Publication programme
The overview and Identity Audit are published first to establish the common document form and demonstrate how an earlier capture page is rebuilt as a complete audit type.
The remaining documents will be published only when their concepts, evidential requirements, finding thresholds, and correction rules are aligned with the Standard and operational Procedure.
- Each audit type must be usable without presupposing blame, error, or capture.
- Each type must distinguish the object of audit, person, role, claim, action, and consequence as far as the matter permits.
- Each type must show which documentation may strengthen, weaken, or alter a provisional finding.
- Each type must carry forward F1–F7 and C0–C6 rather than creating incompatible judgment systems.
- Each type must include a dedicated section on limitation, misuse, and the risk that the audit itself becomes capturing.