Baseline, comparator, or counterfactual

Name the reference point that makes your observation interpretable, because a number alone means nothing.

Back from the tackle shop with a new lure, you catch three bass on Saturday morning and text a photo to your brother captioned "worth every penny." But three compared to what? What do you usually catch on that lake, in that weather, in June? Without the comparison, three fish is just a number wearing a conclusion.

Baseline, comparator, or counterfactual is the move of naming the reference point that makes your observation interpretable, because an observation alone means nothing. The cue is any "it worked" or "that's a lot" reaction to a standalone number. The operation: pick the reference that fits the claim. A baseline: your typical Saturday haul is two to four fish, so three is ordinary. A comparator: your brother fished the same morning with the old lure and caught four. A counterfactual: what would this morning have yielded anyway, given the perfect overcast conditions? Then restate your finding against the reference. What changes is that "the lure works" becomes "the lure performed within my normal range," a humbler and truer sentence. Skip the formal comparison only when the reference is already built in, like a before-and-after weight on the same scale.