Testing the Grounds: the STAR Questions

• Because grounds are the basis for the audience possibly moving over to join the writer in accepting the claim, the quality, quantity, and relevance of the grounds are crucial.

• One way to figure out how, or if, a claim has adequate grounds is to ask what writing professor Richard Fulkerson called the STAR questions. STAR is a shorthand mnemonic device that helps you remember four sets of ideas: Sufficiency, Typicality, Accuracy, and Relevance.

Ask these questions:

Questions about Sufficiency (S)	Questions about Typicality (T)	Questions about Accuracy (A)	Questions About Relevance (R)
How much evidence is offered for this claim? Is this the kind of claim that might require a lot of grounding? How carefully is the claim stated; does it match the quantity of grounds offered or go far beyond?	Is this the type of grounds that typically connect to such claims? Is this the wrong kind of grounds for this purpose? Is this a non-representative, extreme example?	Are these the best, most direct grounds? Are these grounds as current as they need to be? Do these grounds appear to have errors?	Do the grounds actually support this particular claim or only one sort of like it?