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POLICY / 01Practical Atlas

Editorial policy

The standards for research, sourcing, comparison criteria, updates, and commercial independence at Practical Atlas.

Scope

Practical Atlas publishes on three subjects: household money and taxes, home systems and energy, and the technology and scams that reach a household. A topic outside those subjects is not published, however much it is searched, and pages that drifted outside them were retired in October 2026 rather than left in place.

Sources, in order of preference

  1. The body that sets the rule or publishes the figure: the IRS, the Social Security Administration, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Energy Information Administration, the CFPB, the FTC, the FCC, the CPSC, the Department of Energy, the EPA, and the USDA.
  2. Standards bodies and manufacturers’ own documentation, for how a device or system works.
  3. Universities and cooperative extension services, for methods and worked measurements.

News stories, other websites, search-engine summaries, and AI answers are not cited as evidence. A source is cited only after it has been opened and read; if a page cannot be retrieved, it is not cited, and a claim that rested on it is removed.

Figures and dates

Every figure is tied to the year or month it applies to: tax amounts name the tax year, price data names the month it measures. When an agency has not yet published a figure, the page says so instead of estimating it. The 2027 Social Security guide, for example, was written only after the Social Security Administration announced the cost-of-living adjustment, not from forecasts. When a newer figure appears, the page is corrected in place and its review date changes; pages built on yearly figures keep the same address from year to year.

Safety limits

Home guides separate checks a homeowner can make safely from work that belongs to a licensed electrician, plumber, gas technician, or HVAC contractor, and they say so before the steps, not after them. The safety policy explains the three levels used.

How to judge a guide

The publisher byline identifies responsibility; it does not claim a professional credential. Use the linked sources, the dated review, the stated assumptions, and the reproducible examples to judge the work. Hypothetical calculations are labelled as examples, and illustrations are conceptual, not product tests. AI assistance is described in our AI use policy.

Commercial independence

There are no affiliate links, sponsored posts, or paid placements. Advertising is served by Google AdSense, and advertisers have no say in what is covered or how. Where a guide compares options, it names the criteria and leaves the weighting to the reader rather than calling one product universally best.

Corrections

Errors are corrected on the page, and material corrections are listed in the corrections log.