This International Standard provides guidelines that are applicable to bulk and depth profiling GD-OES analyses. The guidelines discussed herein are limited to the analysis of rigid solids, and do not cover the analysis of powders, gases or solutions. Combined with specific standard methods which will become available in the future, these guidelines should enable the regulation of instruments and the control of measuring conditions.Although several types of glow discharge optical emission source have been developed over the years, the guidelines contained in this document use the Grimm type as an example. This is because the Grimm type device accounts for a very large majority of glow discharge optical emission devices currently in use. It should be clearly understood that the guidelines contained herein are equally applicable to other source designs, such as the Marcus type, and that the Grimm type device is used only as an example.