Abstract

One. of the major requirements of every knowledge society is contribution to knowledge through academic research and publications for the professional development of the practitioners. For this reason, members of knowledge societies. faculty members and some professional bodies, especially in the academia are expected to contribute to knowledge through research and scholarly publications. Documentation in research is the process of acknowledging the existence of the literature consulted in the process of the work Observations have shown that many faculty members and scholars are not well-rooted in the documentation of research works and scholarly publications. The paper therefore, aims at exposing scholars, faculty n'>(!mbers and other information professionals (the knowledge society) to proper documentation of research and scholarly publications. To achieve this, the paper explains the meaning of documentation, importance of documentation in research; various referencing/documentation styles namely Modem Language Association (MLA) style, American Psychological Association (APA) style, Footnotes/endnotes, Harvard style and Electronic referencing style, and the basic riles guiding their use. The paper concludes by recommending various ways through which members of the knowledge society can acquaint themselves with trends in documentation of academic research such as: consulting textbooks in documentation of 'research and publication, exploiting the benefits of conference papers and journals. that are peer reviewed, visiting websites that are related to documentation of research publications, developing interest in bibliography and attending conferer.ces and observe with interest latest developments in documentation styles.