The derivation of chemical kinetics by the thermal analysis community has a checkered past, with numerous papers published using substandard methodology. The ICTAC kinetics committee has taken on the task of upgrading the quality of thermal analysis kinetics through a series of workshops and publications. However, the resulting publications from those efforts by design do not cover all important aspects in detail. This paper explores two issues in greater depth-the optimum selection of heating rates for kinetic determination based on statistical error considerations and the importance of using a diverse set of thermal histories, including but not limited to isothermal and linear heating, to better constrain and validate global models. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.