ABSTRACT
How you gather your data directly impacts how reproducible your research will be. You should try your best to document every step of your data gathering process. Reproduction will be easier if your documentation-especially, variable descriptions and source code-makes it easy for you and others to understand what you have done. If all of your data gathering steps are tied together by your source code, then independent researchers (and you) can more easily regather the data. Regathering data will be easiest if running your code allows you to get all the way back to the raw data files-the rawer the better. Of course this may not always be possible. You may need to conduct interviews or compile information from paper based archives, for example. The best you can sometimes do is describe your data gathering process in detail. Nonetheless, R’s automated data gathering capabilities for internet-based information is extensive. Learning how to take full advantage of these capabilities greatly increases reproducibility and can save you considerable time and eort over the long run.
