In recent times there has been a resurgence of interest in the preparation, promulgation, and implementation of standards. A major objective of standardization is to establish and/or improve the quality of products, services, procedures, and so on. This objective is better-achieved if the standards themselves are of a high quality. In this paper, some of the existing standards are examined with respect to clarity of expression, technical acuity, and compliance-sampling procedures, in order to illustrate inadequate quality in these aspects. Some solutions are offered, including a procedure for obtaining a suitable sampling procedure for judging conformance in product standards or related documents.