Research task (General Consumer Research):
Write a series of blog posts discussing ways people can invest their money for retirement and large purchases. The posts should be understandable and applicable for all adults, regardless of their prior experience in investing.

Evaluation rubric:
criterion: The response clearly labels sections as blog posts.
weight: 4
axis: Instruction Following

criterion: The response creates posts that are between 500 and 2000 words and styled like a blog.
weight: 4
axis: Instruction Following

criterion: The response creates that posts contain at least 3 subheadings.
weight: 2
axis: Communication Quality

criterion: The response mentions a financial term or acronym (e.g. liquidity, yield, Roth IRA, bull market) without defining it for a general audience.
weight: -3
axis: Communication Quality

criterion: The response contains at least one table to compare different types of securities (e.g. common stock, preferred stock, corporate bonds, government bonds).
weight: 3
axis: Communication Quality

criterion: The response mentions in the first blog post that this series does not assume prior experience in finance, either explicitly (i.e, "This is readable regardless of your investing experience") or implicitly (e.g.,  mentioning investing is accessible to everyone).
weight: 4
axis: Explicit Criteria

criterion: The response displays the citations independently for each blog post.
weight: 3
axis: References & Citation Quality

criterion: The response contains blog posts with topics only relevant to professionals (e.g. statistical concepts for professional traders, nuanced discussion of the Federal Reserve, history of the 2008 banking criss, leveraged trading).
weight: -3
axis: Explicit Criteria

criterion: The response contains verifiably incorrect or outdated information (e.g., mortgage rates from 2024, Roth IRA limits from 2023,  promises of returns in high-risk trading strategies like cryptocurrency, incorrect bond rates).
weight: -3
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response contains at least 2 examples of different time horizons for investing (e.g., short-term, medium-term, long-term, longer than 10 years).
weight: 3
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response relates different time horizons to risk (e.g., higher risk is tolerable for long time horizons, shorter term investment is less predictable, different expectations for bonds and stocks, time restrictions on withdrawing from certain accounts).
weight: 2
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response introduces the idea of diversifying investments across different asset classes.
weight: 4
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response defines stocks as shares of a company, and distinguishes common vs preferred stock.
weight: 4
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response defines bonds as loans.
weight: 4
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response defines 401k accounts as an employer-sponsored account with tax benefits.
weight: 4
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response defines IRA accounts as an account with tax benefits that any individual can use.
weight: 4
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response defines mutual funds and ETFs as groups of securities one can trade.
weight: 3
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response identifies at least 2 differences between mutual funds and ETFs (e.g. investment minimum, when they can be traded, disclosure differences between ETFs and mutual funds, management fees).
weight: 2
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response contains at least one table comparing different types of investor profiles (e.g., makeup of aggressive vs conservative portfolios, makeup of short-term vs long term investments, makeup possibilites between different aggresive portfolios, distribution of mutual funds by investment strategy).
weight: 2
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response relates diversification of investments to risk.
weight: 2
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response gives an example of an event where a stock would earn an investor money (e.g., unexpectedly positive quarterly earnings, favorable media coverage, major government contract, meme stock), and an event where a stock could lose an investor money (e.g., poor quarterly earnings, negative press, executive scandal, bankruptcy).
weight: 2
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response gives an example of an event where a bond loses an investor money (e.g., issuer goes bankrupt, interest rates decline, inflation being higher than interest rate, rise of interest rates for new bonds devaluing the current bond).
weight: 2
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response mentions that bonds can also be bought and sold on the secondary market.
weight: 1
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response compares traditional and Roth savings accounts for the 401k and IRA.
weight: 4
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response names the major US stock market indexes (e.g., S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq, Russell 2000).
weight: 4
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response identifies a unique feature of each of the major stock market indexes (e.g., S&P 500, Dow Jones, Nasdaq, Russell 2000).
weight: 2
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response names at least 3 different brokers available to the public (e.g., Fidelity, Vanguard, Charles Schwab, Robinhood).
weight: 3
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response names at least 3 commonly traded mutual funds (e.g., FXAIX, VTSAX, Fidelity Freedom 2050, Dodge & Cox Income Fund (DODIX)).
weight: 3
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response names at least 3 commonly traded ETFs (e.g., SPY, QQQ, AGG, VEA).
weight: 3
axis: Implicit Criteria

criterion: The response identifies a difference between saving for a large purchase and investing for retirement.
weight: 5
axis: Explicit Criteria

criterion: The response mentions that different brokers offer the same mutual funds and ETFs.
weight: 1
axis: Implicit Criteria