Insights into expertise

In the introduction, we stressed the importance of starting with a simple definition. From the strict point of view of Latin etymology, an expert is one who has undergone trials and faced dangers (experiti), and who therefore emerges experienced. This is not enough to characterize him, as we shall see below, but it does bring out the idea of experience resulting from trials. If we now attempt to detail the most constant components of expertise, the following features stand out.

Expertise :

• is applied to a troubled situation that cannot be dealt with "as it happens" using conventional means;

• mobilizes specialized knowledge and combines it in an appropriate way, as a response to a problem ;

• concludes with a judgment formulated in a report addressed to...