C.39.WA:1 - Problem frame

Use this when an explanation, proposal or review must answer a question about an organized whole or a broad field, and work on its parts can lose that question. The difficulty often becomes visible after a useful decomposition, a sequence of local corrections, a change of representation or a handover. An author may explain several operations accurately while leaving their common grounds and connections for the reader to invent.

Begin with the question the account must answer and the use it must enable. Recover the subject and required depth from that question and its substantive grounds. Then develop the organization that makes the contributions answer it together.

The result is an account whose relevant parts, relations, grounds and limits can be followed, together with a justified judgement about its adequacy for the original use. A review can instead return an exact missing construction and the work needed to obtain it. Retain an already adequate account. A calculation or a local correction with an established question can finish under its own criterion.