The Clarity Project emerged from the exposure of a draft of the Preface to International Standards on Quality Control, Auditing, Assurance and Related Services (Preface) and an Operations Policy No. 1 – Bold Type Lettering (Operations Policy) in 2002. The Preface stated that existing auditing standards contain ‘basic principles and essential procedures' identified by black or bold lettering. They also include explanatory and other material that provides guidance for their application which is identified in grey or plain type lettering. The Preface suggested that auditors have to exercise professional judgment in applying standards and that they can be overridden in certain circumstances (IAASB, 2003f, §14). The problem that dogged the Project from the start was the failure to fully consider what was meant by the key expressions such as ‘basic principles and essential procedures’ and ‘explanatory material’