The Importance of Documenting Research

Whether you’re jotting down the results of your own experiments or organizing the work of others, there’s no understating the importance of organizing and citing your research. Proper documentation helps you organize your notes and data. It also adds validity to your work, gives credit to others in your field, and makes it easier to share your research with others. No matter where you are in your career, build a habit of documenting every piece of research you acquire. To help you understand why these skills are so vital to your methods, here’s our guide on the importance of documenting research.

Give and Take Credit

Properly documented research is easier to cite, share, and take credit for. When you use data or information from another source in your work, you need to give the proper credit to the original researcher. In the world of science and research, it’s important to share ideas and build off each other’s work. If people spread ideas and research around without the proper citations, it gets harder to trust the validity of the information you read and share. Proper credit allows researchers to learn from each other, creating even more ideas together.

Make Research Shareable

Your research can help readers better understand the information and ideas you’re writing about. By properly documenting this information, you help your readers find and reference the same resources you did when you were creating your work. This is a great way to further explain your own ideas while also spreading the work of other professionals in your field.

Produce Honest and Valid Work

You want your classmates and colleagues to view your work—and you—as honest and reliable. When you know the importance of documenting research, that integrity shows up in all the work you produce. Make sure your peers know the effort you put into your papers by showing the resources and methods you used. By documenting your research throughout the entire process, you add honesty and authenticity to your work. Over time, this will help you gain acknowledgment and respect in all of your work.

Scientific Notebook is committed to helping students and professionals safely and accurately organize their research. From class notes to your own scientific breakthrough, we have the scientific lab books you need to keep your thoughts and data in order throughout any project.