Editorial policy

What we aim for

Every lesson should be accurate, original, written in plain English for someone with no background in finance, and honest about what it does not cover. We would rather leave a topic unpublished than publish something thin or unreliable.

MarketShots is written like a book: each lesson should still be true when you read it years from now. So lessons explain how things work, not what today's numbers are.

How a lesson is built

Each lesson answers one central question, such as "what is a share?", and follows a consistent structure:

1. What you will learn, and what the lesson builds on.
2. A plain-English explanation of the idea.
3. Why it matters in practice.
4. An everyday comparison where it helps.
5. A worked example with realistic numbers and every step shown.
6. A formula or diagram where it genuinely adds something.
7. How to interpret it, and what conclusions are reasonable.
8. Its limitations: what the idea cannot tell you.
9. Common mistakes and misunderstandings.
10. A short exercise to try.
11. Key takeaways, a knowledge check, related lessons and references.

Our standards

• Explain every term the first time it appears, and keep terminology consistent across lessons.
• Write what stays true. Lessons explain principles and mechanisms. They do not state figures that change from time to time, such as tax rates, charges, limits, deadlines, market timings or helpline numbers. Where a figure helps, the example uses a clearly labelled made-up number ("suppose the rate is 20%") and the lesson tells you which official body publishes the current one.
• Separate kinds of statement. Stable principles are written as such. Historical examples name the period they describe. Hypothetical examples use made-up companies and numbers and say so.
• No invented facts. We do not fabricate market data, company examples, statistics or citations. If we cannot verify something, we leave it out or say clearly that it is uncertain.
• No predictions presented as facts. No indicator, ratio or pattern reliably predicts prices, and we do not suggest otherwise.
• Show the downside. Every method is presented with its limitations, and examples include losses as well as gains.
• No recommendations. Real companies are not recommended. Examples are for explanation only.

Test questions

Module test questions are written against the module's stated learning objectives and follow the same rule: no question depends on a rate, limit or date that can change. Every question has one clearly correct answer, an explanation, and an explanation of why each wrong option is wrong. Automated checks reject duplicate or near-duplicate questions, missing explanations, ambiguous options such as "all of the above", and banks too small or unbalanced to support a fair test. A module test is presented as complete only when its bank holds at least 30 questions.

How content is written and checked

Lessons and questions are written with the help of AI writing tools. Every published lesson and question is checked against the standards above by automated rules that run before the site is built, and statements about Indian institutions are checked against the official sources listed on each page. Lessons have not been reviewed by a qualified financial professional, and we do not claim otherwise.

Why lessons do not need constant updating

Because lessons avoid figures that change, they do not go out of date when a rate or rule changes. Each lesson shows when it was last updated. If something in a lesson is wrong, or has stopped being true, please use our corrections policy. Our sources and references policy explains where to find current figures.