Credibility stems from one's acquired expertise, the conviction of one's words, as well as the integration of authoritative and acceptable sources into one's arguments.

Think about a radio talk show host who is a master of inflamed discourse and witty retorts, but is unable to effectively contradict a well-informed expert guest with whom he or she disagrees. While the host may connect better with his or her audience and may even garner more laughs and get the radio station's switchboard to light up, whose advice is the audience going to take when critical decisions need to be made?

As a doctoral student and an IT leader, your opinions and insights will carry significance simply because of a certain measure of credibility that will be ascribed to you. To maintain and expand that credibility, you need to inform yourself with resources upon which you would personally bet your professional reputation.

Those resources need to be credible and appropriate for your target audience. For this final Hot Topics Discussion, you apply criteria for evaluating credibility and appropriateness of resources.

By Day 4, post a response of approximately 350-500 words in which you explain how you determine the credibility and appropriateness of a resource for an audience.

Describe the criteria you use to evaluate candidate resources for your own expert consideration.