✪ Build Credibility and Trust by Using Paradata: The New Signature of Serious Expertise - #66

Why, in an age of perfect-looking content, showing how you work builds more credibility than what you say

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I write this newsletter for new, emerging experts, consultants and advisors who are looking to increase their visibility, authority and trust in the eyes of their prospective customers: people who want to make a business out of their personal know-how even if they’re not great writers and may not have digital-age credentials.

The strategy I have been using for 25+ years, is curation. That means helping my readers find what they should pay attention to by: a) becoming a discovery agent for them, b) highlighting and contextualizing other people’s great work, c) creating collections, libraries, catalogs that repeatedly support the goals of my readers.

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In this issue:
I used to just share lists of tools and resources. I built a whole magazine - newsletter around it (Good Tools). I built a lot of my early reputation, many years ago, through the creation of unique lists and collections (RSSTop55, Full Tsunami Video Footage, Content Curator’s Toolkit, etc.)

But as I grew older and wiser, I felt a lingering feeling that what I had trained and refined over the years was more about searching, finding and collecting than about truly curating, where you must be adding your perspective, process and experience.

In fact it was not the size of these collections that mattered, but the reason, approach and system I used that people were really interested into.

The few collections where I explained how I did the research, where I shared the obstacles I had found and the specific criteria I had used, the comparisons I made, why I picked this over that, those got way more appreciation and positive feedback than the rest. People seemed to trust them more.

But I wasn’t really sure of why.

Until… last month when I was writing the content for “The New Influencer Is a Meta-Curator - #64” where I analyzed the practice of curating other curators. During the research phase for that article I kept running into this term from library science and archival work: paradata.

So I looked into it and what I discovered is that paradata specifically means sharing the “how” of your curation process: how you found a story, why you chose it, what sources you cross-checked.

I realized I’d been doing this instinctively in some of my better work but it was not something I did systematically. Even more interesting is the fact that if I look at my most-engaged posts from the past year (not the most liked but the ones where people spent more time and came back to), almost every single one included some form of process transparency.

The same did not happen in those posts where I just listed advice, recommendations, tools or resources without sharing the how I got to select them.

That’s when I realized that by providing this transparency trail (paradata), you naturally build deep trust with your audience.

Why?

Because through paradata people can follow your thinking, understand your criteria, see the process you use. They can see you’re not just copy-pasting from AI or throwing random stuff together. More importantly they can see your values and judgment, not just the conclusions at which you arrive.

Paradata is the focus of this issue.

a) What Is Paradata

Paradata is a term from library and archival science that refers to data about the process of producing, managing, or using other data. In simpler terms, it’s sharing the “how” of your process, how you found something, why you chose it, what sources you checked, what you compared, and what you decided to leave out.

Think of it like bringing to class your math notebook with the exercises and operations you have done for homework. The teacher looks at it not just to see if you got each result correct. sHe’s looking to see how you went about deciding what operations to use and how you performed them. Showing how you did it allows your teacher to see whether you actually understand what you’re doing.

That’s why the use of paradata is so critical any time one is curating, recommending, or filtering information for others. Tool lists, resource directories, expert roundups, book recommendations, research summaries. If you’re helping people decide what deserves their attention, paradata belongs there.

Paradata is therefore relevant to anyone positioning themselves as a modern thought-leader in hir own sector. Consultants, advisors, educators, curators, researchers, coaches, anyone whose value comes from judgment and experience, not just from finding or collecting information.

Its key value is in the fact that in an age where AI can generate perfect-looking recommendations instantly, paradata proves a human with real experience did the actual work. Paradata sets the borderline between “seeming knowledgeable” and “true trustable expert”.

b) Eight Ways To Leverage Paradata To Build Credibility and Trust

What follows is a set of recommendations based on my personal experience, on what specific paradata to share and why. Use it as a compass, or better yet, a menu from which to pick and gradually add to your value-creation / curation diet.

1. When It All Happened

Add a clear temporal context to every curated resource you publish, showing when you actually researched it.

Half of the “best tools” lists I find online are three years old with many dead links and defunct services. When you date your work, you’re taking responsibility. You’re saying “this was accurate on this date.” You show respect for your reader’s time.

I maintain several resource directories that I update annually. The ones with clear dates get linked to 5x more often than undated ones.

At the top of any curated collection, add this:

“Last researched: January 2026. I test and update this list every 6 months. Next update scheduled: July 2026.”

Then actually do the updates.

With this paradata your dated resources become infrastructure people return to, not disposable content they read once and forget.

2. What Drove You To Do It

Share why you decided to create this curated resource. What moved you, what inspired you, what made you consider one direction rather than a different one.

What was your specific purpose in investing time to pull together that resource?

What were your expectations for what it would do, generate, give life to?

The more you clarify your personal motivational context, the easier it is to find readers that will deeply identify with your resource, not just because of its focus / topic, but mostly because of your direction and motives.

It could be something like this: “I was motivated to create this Paradata article, by my own desire to learn more about this fascinating topic. Since paradata:

• is not a topic I’ve seen being talked about before and since

• I love touching non-obvious topics that allow us to better understand things,

• fits perfectly with my focus on building credibility and trust through curation,

I thought it would be a great time investment and a great opportunity to learn.”

3. How You Did It

Tell people exactly how you arrived at what you’re presenting. Not in abstract terms, but in practical, observable ones.

Where did you look. For how long. What you tested. What you ignored. What tools you used to track, filter, compare. How you arrived at your final selection. What determined the order. And so on.

Most curated content fails here. It jumps straight to providing its selection but fails at transparently show the author arrived at it. In an AI-saturated environment like the one we’re in today, that’s a credibility killer. Anyone can generate a polished directory, collection or series of examples. Very few can show the path that led to that list.

Here’s a possible short intoìro you could add to your curated content: “I monitored X daily for three months. I saved - by using xxxzzzz everything that matched these two criteria. I personally tested the top 25 options by using tool x and y. I cross-checked my impressions with John B (link), and Mary T (link), two practitioners I deeply trust. I discarded anything that required complex setup or showed signs of abandonment.”

This kind of detail changes how your work is perceived. It shows you have put in the effort. Readers can see that a real person did the work, made decisions, and took responsibility for them.

4. Which Are Your Sources

Tell people exactly where you found each item in your content, list, collection and how you vetted it.

When most experts rely on AI for polished content with no depth or roots, this kind of transparency becomes a powerful differentiator. Anyone can generate a list. Showing your sourcing proves you did real work.

Before your list, digest or recommendations, add one paragraph like this:

“I found these tools by monitoring Hacker News ‘Show HN’ posts daily for six months, testing the 40 most upvoted ones personally, and cross-referencing with what three developers I trust (Sarah, Marcus, and Tom) actually use in production. I excluded anything that required more than 30 minutes to set up.”

See how specific that is? That’s the point. Vague sourcing (”I researched this”) means nothing. Specific sourcing proves you were there. This transparency becomes a powerful differentiator when most content relies on invisible algorithms or AI generation.

One more tip on this front: cite also your intermediaries. The people and publications through which you have discovered a good resource, book, or article.

As in: Source: Mr John Smith - via Kevin Johnson

Relevant read: “Introducing The Curator’s Code: A Standard for Honoring Attribution of Discovery Across the Web” by Maria Popova

5. What Selection Criteria You’ve Used

Before listing anything, write 3-4 sentences explaining what you were optimizing for. Which were your selection criteria.

This type of contextual framing helps readers understand whether your choices apply to their specific situation and whether it’s worth investing more time in them. In many cases your curated resource may match your topic / focus but your selection criteria might not match their actual needs. Being clear about this up front saves everyone time and builds trust.

I run workshops where people build their first curated collections. The number one mistake beginners make? Jumping straight to recommendations without establishing what are their selection criteria. When they add criteria first, the quality of their work improves drastically.

You could start with this kind of framing: “My criteria for this list: Tools must work offline, cost under $50/year, export your data in standard formats, and have been actively maintained for at least two years. I prioritized simplicity over features. If you need enterprise collaboration or complex workflows, look elsewhere, this is for individual practitioners.”

Now when someone reads your recommendations, they can decide if your criteria match their needs.

Plus, it forces you to actually have criteria instead of just picking things that you simply like or have run into.

6. What You Have Excluded

Explicitly name two or three popular options you left out and explain exactly why. Adding things to a collection is easy. Leaving things out is much more difficult if you are not truly familiar with that field. Why? Well, exclusion requires judgment. And sharing your exclusion criteria proves you’re doing real evaluation, not just collecting what’s popular or what you run into and looks interesting. This is where it shows whether you have real experience or not.

Here’s an example of how this paradata could be put to use: “I excluded Notion even though it’s everywhere right now. Three reasons: First, it optimizes for organization, not retrieval—most people already organize too much. Second, vendor lock-in is severe. Third, I watched it get slower and more bloated over two years while the team chased features instead of performance. If you need heavy databases, fine. For most people, it creates more problems than it solves.”

Sharing exclusion criteria proves you’re doing real evaluation, not just collecting popular names. It shows judgment, not aggregation. Exclusion proves taste. It proves you have criteria.

7. How It Connects To the Rest

Explain how what you’ve created fits into the broader landscape of resources, ideas, and perspectives you already share. What should someone read before this. What becomes more meaningful after it. Which pieces complement it, challenge it, or extend it.

How does this resource, you have built, fit in with the other ones you have put together. Does it connect to some specific ones? How? What should I check after I have read it? What would have been appropriate to check before diving into it?

Think of it like helping someone orient themselves in a city they’ve just arrived in. This is not the whole city. This is one street. Here’s what it connects to. Here’s why it matters. Here’s where to go next depending on what you’re looking for.

When you do this, two things happen. First, you increase the practical value of your work, because people know how to use it. Second, you position yourself as a guide, not a content dispenser.

You’re no longer just recommending things. You’re helping people navigate a territory.

That’s a strong trust signal. It shows long-term thinking, coherence, and care for the reader’s journey. And it subtly communicates that you’ve been mapping this space for a while, not just passing through.

8. What Alternative Perspectives Are There

Point people to two or three other curators who approached your same topic from other viewpoints.

This sounds counterintuitive, but when you map alternative approaches and show where they overlap or diverge, you help people see more, increase their resolution and their ability to appreciate what you’re presenting.

By showing other perspectives you also become a personal trusted guide (a meta-curator), someone who helps people navigate not just resources but other guides too.

When I started regularly linking to other curators’ work in my roundups, something unexpected happened. Those other curators started linking back. My traffic went up. My authority went up. Why? Because I positioned myself as a guide, not as a competitor.

You can add a section like this: “For different takes on this topic: Jeremy Caplan focuses more on journalist, indie entrepreneurs and creators-specific tools at Wonder Tools. Thomas McKinlay takes a research-backed approach at Science Says. Mine prioritizes building credibility and trust for experts through curation. All three are worth following, although we catch different things.”

When you map alternative approaches and show where they overlap or diverge, you’re performing a vital social function: helping people orient themselves, and understanding better what’s relevant for them.

People trust you more when you admit other good options exist.

Why This Works

In a world where algorithms and AI determine what people read, human curators doing critical evaluation become the primary route to surface real value.

When you show your work, you’re not just sharing information. You’re sharing your judgment, your experience, your actual thinking process. That’s what builds trust. Not polish. Not perfection. Transparency. Paradata is how you prove you’re that human curator. Not through claims. Through transparency.

Try this: next time you curate anything, pick just one or two of these eight methods. Add one paragraph showing your process. Show your sources. Show your filtering criteria.

The world doesn’t need more content. It needs more trust.

References:

“Crystallized Intelligence” - ScienceDirect
Theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence (Gf–Gc theory) introduced by Raymond B. Cattell (see Cattell, Raymond Bernard (1905–98)) and modified by John Horn (Cattell 1971, Horn 1989).
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“The Concept of Paradata (Chapter 2)” - Cambridge.org (2025)
The relationships between, forms of information and information about them.
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”Paradata in Documentation Standards and Recommendations for Digital Archaeological Visualisations” - Mediarep (2020)
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”Positioning paradata” - School of Information, University of British Columbia Interparestrustai.org (2023)
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“3D Research Challenges in Cultural Heritage V: Paradata, Metadata and Data in Digitisation” - Springer Nature Link (2025)
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Recent articles where I used paradata transparency:

✪ Information Design: Stop Designing for Beauty. Design for Trust - #40

✪ Perfect AI Writing Is Plastic: That’s Not How Trustworthy Humans Sound - #47

✪ High-Value Content Is Not Enough: What Makes People Actually Trust You - #50

✪ Why Trusted Recommendations Are Becoming More Valuable Than New Content - #56

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Invite: Start Curating, Stop Publishing AI Shiny Slop

I teach expert consultants how to create great content that builds credibility and trust (even if you’re not a great writer).

I specifically show how to increase your authority and competence by curating insights, research, news, resources and tools in your field of interest.

This month you can book a one or more private one-to-one consulting sessions with me. Once you’re booked for one, I read and listen attentively to your situation (you will send me either audio and/or text describing me your situation) and then, in a live meeting, I provide you with a:

a) Critical review of your present market positioning to identify key strengths, weaknesses and areas for improvement leading to clearly differentiate yourself from the competition.

b) Analysis of your content / editorial approach to pinpoint key strategies to curate content that best aligns with your competence and that rapidly builds trust and credibility around your focus.

c) Mini-plan and specific steps for how to further develop and refine your communication plan over the course of the next few months.

If you are interested in doing this together, please fill out the form below:

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Cover image: Tony’s hands taking notes for how the next job must be executed. Tony is a painter and manual signage maker on the mexican island of Holbox. March 31st, 2023.

I have been curating what matters for experts, indie entrepreneurs and communication professionals for 25+ years.

• What drives me is to learn, help others become independent, and improve through this practice the world around me.

• I enjoy researching, organizing and making-sense of what I discover.

• I strive to create useful and lasting information resources.

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• If you feel we are on the same path, please consider supporting this work (like, recommend, subscribe).

I help expert consultants avoid generating AI slop and overcome posting paralysis, to become trusted, high-authority authors through curation.

Follow a path with a heart.

From Koh Samui (TH)
Robin Good