Publication standards
Editorial policy
How we choose questions, use sources, check calculations and explain the limits of our work.
Updated · Mortgage Rate Outlook
Our purpose
An article should help a reader understand a financial question or economic number. We prioritize explanations that make a useful distinction, compare clearly defined alternatives or show how a calculation works. Search questions can inform topic selection; popularity alone is not sufficient reason to publish.
Authorship and responsibility
David Jung operates Mortgage Rate Outlook. The Mortgage Rate Outlook Research Desk is our publication byline. Our AI editorial voices provide different writing approaches and subject focuses. Their names and illustrated portraits do not represent a team of human reporters or credentialed financial advisers.
AI tools assist with drafting, revision and automated review. Those checks do not amount to independent human expert review, and they cannot guarantee that every claim is correct. The current articles do not claim such a human review. Any future reviewer credit must identify a real contributor and the work they actually performed.
Sources and research method
- Define the question. Identify what the reader needs to understand, the relevant country or market, and what the article can reasonably establish.
- Find the underlying evidence. Prefer original releases, technical documentation and official explanations for data and product mechanics. A primary source can still have limitations; it is evidence, not an endorsement of our interpretation.
- Keep the evidence traceable. Preserve retrieved source material in the working records. Link claims to the source used and distinguish a source’s publication date from the date it was retrieved.
- Check comparisons and calculations. Match units, observation periods and definitions. Record the inputs, formula, rounding and assumptions behind a calculated result.
- Review the explanation. Automated checks assess source support, numerical consistency, readability and whether the article answers its intended question. Unsupported passages are revised or removed before the candidate is accepted.
Checks evaluate the evidence supplied to them. They may miss an error, misread a source or overlook relevant information outside that evidence. Readers should be able to inspect our sources and report a possible mistake.
A practical example
In our Treasury bill explanation, the comparison identifies which amount each rate uses as its base and how the time convention differs. A yield label alone is not enough to make two rates comparable. The article links the supporting Treasury material beside its explanation.
Dates, revisions and uncertainty
A data-release date tells you when the source published a release. A reference-check date tells you when reference material was checked. An evidence cutoff tells you what information was available to the article. None is automatically the date our article was published.
Public articles show their publication date and, when substantively revised, their update date. We do not change dates merely to make an unchanged article look recent. Official data revisions are described as new evidence; material errors in our own work receive a correction notice.
Examples are labeled as hypothetical when appropriate. Estimates, assumptions and material uncertainty stay visible. We do not turn a descriptive financial explanation into a personalized recommendation or a prediction that the evidence cannot support.
Images and illustrations
Editorial illustrations can be AI-generated. They illustrate a subject and do not document a real event or establish a factual claim. Persona portraits depict fictional editorial voices. Charts and tables must reflect their stated data, dates and assumptions.
Independence and corrections
Our funding policy separates commercial arrangements from factual conclusions. We do not imply endorsement by a source institution simply because we cite its work.
Read our corrections policy for how errors, later updates and unsupported articles are handled. Send a possible correction to our reader inbox, with the article link and supporting evidence.