Beyond quagmires: the evolving quality of documents research.

W ith 10 years of tobacco documents research (TDR) completed, now is a reasonable time for those of us who conduct TDR to assess its legacy and its potential. In this issue of Tobacco Control, Stacy Carter thoughtfully depicts historical patterns in the conduct and reporting of TDR and how these patterns have evolved. She proposes ‘‘a process for planning and evaluating TDR that positions the researcher as constructor’’ rather than merely as a conduit of information contained in the documents, and encourages researchers to be more conscious of the analytic traditions they bring to their searching and analysis strategies. From this platform, we explore the following: What has been the added value of documents research? How can this added value be sustained? And, by what standards should future work be assessed?