Since the central concern of this book is the furthering of our understanding of the norms of assertion, it will be helpful to say something about what is meant by something being a norm. This is important, since much of what will be said about arguments for and against various proposed norms will depend on what sense of norm is being used. This chapter discusses how the norms of assertion have been typically conceived in the norms of assertion literature. While there are potentially many parallel debates concerning the nature of norms, since this book is about the norms of assertion and what has been said on that topic, I will largely ignore the parallel debates.