The phenomenological theory of the electret effect, as developed by Wiseman and Feaster and extended by Perlman and Meunier, is cast into a form which allows a unified treatment of a variety of experiments. Introducing Mikusinski operators, a superposition principle expresses the electric displacement operator as &egr;E+PbwithPb(t)=−∞0&khgr;(t−T)E(T)dT,and &egr;=&egr;0+&khgr;i+&khgr;, where the operator &khgr; characterizes the slow polarization response and the constant &khgr;igives the fast response. Then, the fieldEwithin a dielectric of conductivitycis related to the electrode current densityJby the operator equationE=Z(J—J¯), whereZ=1/(c+s&egr;) determines the impedance operator and the operatorJ¯={dPb/dt}−&egr;iE(−0)gives the effects of fields applied beforet=0. Applications include a derivation of interesting relations discovered by Gross, an evaluation of the accuracy of the quasiequilibrium approximation used by Perlman and Meunier, and the construction of an equivalent circuit.