At some point in your career, it's likely you'll find yourself on the wrong track and that your work will return negative or null results. These may be due to technical errors, unproven hypotheses, or an inability to replicate the findings of another publication. Of course, this begs the question of where the fault lies: with the original researcher or the researcher who fails to replicate the findings of the original researcher?
It is difficult to unpack this question and the thorny issue of reproducibility. Negative results are often underreported in publications, as they are difficult to interpret but also because positive results tend to gather more citations and are thus considered more impactful.
Communicating null results is important. It can help the researcher to find solutions, alert other researchers who are working on similar projects, and justify the use of grants, especially when significant resources have been used and sacrifices have been made. Some argue that the possible redundancy that may result from repeated experiments is well worth the time and resources, as it will result in more robust science: more reporting of negative results could prevent an assumed legitimacy or positive results and the repetitions of nonviable research topics. Even if null results are not published, some argue that a registry for such results might be the next best thing. In any event, negative results should be reported much as positive ones are though shoring up their presentation with context is key.
