Yea, that was my position on it as well, thats what i read from the rules, but its only fair to give the benefit of the doubt given that "a previous gm" ran an entire season of sessions this way. So i at the least understand her attachment to it. Thanks a load to all the responses! I think I have my case now :3

Cool, thanks for the responses guys. So is there any possible way (just out of fairness to the player playing the wizard in this) that you would conceivably end up doubling the bonus? Even if it's not what i described here.

A player in a DFRPG game is a fireball spec wizard. She has a fireball rote with a focus specifically for the rote, at a claimed +8. This seems odd to me in light of the literal rules from the book (YS).

Information from the book:

Focus item slots cannot exceed your lore.
the tricky part:
When you specialize something, the slot gains a +1 bonus.

The wizard has a lore of 4. Our issue is, Some players feel that the focus should be as follows

Fireball Rote Focus [ +5 ]
 +1 (slot 1) +1 (specialized)
 +1 (slot 2)
 +1 (slot 3)
 +1 (slot 4)

because of the specifics of the specialization, the focus for the single spell, as per the book says, you get a "single slot upgrade" of a bonus of +1.

She feels the focus should be totaled as follows.
Fireball Rote Focus [ +8 ]
 + 4 (slot 1) +4, one for each point spent.

The issue is, the book gives an example of a single +1, and when it refers to the bonus for specialization, it uses +1 again, so she feels this rule should be interpreted as doubling the bonus. some of us disagree, and read the book literal to say a single slot gaining a +1. Meaning with a lore of 4, the maximum possible bonus should be 5, not 8.