Fairmind Format

Overview

Fairmind Format is a document structure and a set of authoring principles for explaining polarizing issues. The goal is to help readers understand complex, contested issues in an informed and fair-minded way.

Anyone can use Fairmind Format to create their own guide. Guides published on Fairmind.org focus on the hardest issues and have particularly strict standards of review for fairness and accuracy.

Structure

A Fairmind Guide has four main parts:

1. Facts: A short list of non-controversial facts and definitions that are important for understanding the rest of the guide. Later sections will introduce their own facts, but these initial facts apply more broadly across the guide.
2. Factors to Consider: A set of key factors to consider, each with balanced arguments in their strongest valid forms. Arguments are organized around common factors so they meet head-on rather than talk past each other.
3. Example Viewpoints: A set of viewpoints that show how thoughtful people might reach different conclusions based on different judgments and weightings of the factors. The viewpoints represent the main positions in the issue’s public discourse, across a range of perspectives.
4. Editorial Choices: An appendix that explains the guide’s framing and language choices as well as notable omissions. This content is optional for readers but required for authors, who must be transparent about their decisions—especially what wasn’t included and why.

Authoring Principles

In addition to Fairmind Format’s structure, these authoring principles apply when writing a guide’s content:

• Be fair. Do not take sides. Instead, communicate the best of each side. Be particularly sensitive to framing decisions, phrasing, or key factors chosen, as these can affect balance in subtle ways. The test is whether fair-minded readers—those trying to understand an issue rather than defend a predetermined conclusion—would conclude that each side was represented in good faith and without bias.
• Use only verified facts, footnoted to reliable sources. A reasonable person checking a source should have no question about it. Where a fact is disputed but important to understand the topic, the dispute itself must be explained. If a false or misleading fact is prominent in the discourse, include it in the “Editorial Choices” appendix.
• Use steelmen, not strawmen. Present arguments in their strongest valid forms (“steelmen”). Exclude appealing but misleading claims (“strawmen”). If such claims are common in the discourse, explain their omission in the “Editorial Choices” appendix.
• Provide essential context. When context is needed for the reader to make sense of conflicting claims or uncertainties, provide it—for example in a paragraph before or after the arguments in a “Factors to Consider” section. Don’t leave the reader with a choice that begs obvious and answerable factual questions.
• Avoid false balance. On factual disputes, if the evidence strongly supports one side, say so with appropriate sourcing. Fairness does not require presenting claims as equally supported when they are not.
• Be concise. Only say what’s necessary for the reader to understand the issue clearly and fairly. That means focusing on factors, arguments, and context that could materially affect people’s opinions—and omitting content that is less essential. For example, advocates often make arguments that can only reinforce an opinion, not change it. Don’t put this kind of argument in “Factors to Consider”; if a reader might reasonably question why it was omitted, include it in the “Editorial Choices” appendix.
• Target ten minutes. A guide’s main content should take no more than ten minutes to read. At typical reading speed, that is about 2,500 words. This does not count the “Editorial Choices” or footnotes content. As you’re authoring, keep the depth at the same level as gold-standard guides like The Death Penalty. This will help you hit the target.

To summarize the authoring principles in a single statement: Instead of simply reciting each side’s talking points and spin, a Fairmind Guide should distill the debate for fair, accurate, and concise understanding.

Learn More

• For a gold-standard use of Fairmind Format, see this guide: The Death Penalty.
• Want to create your own guide? Here are resources to help.