A document is a piece of writing or collection of information that records something important or official. Birth certificates, report cards, contracts, and passports are all documents because they contain information that matters and might need to be proven or referred to later.

Documents show what happened, what was agreed to, or what's true. When you write an essay for school, you're creating a document of your ideas. When your parents sign papers to buy a house, those papers are legal documents that help prove who owns the property.

Documents can be physical papers or digital files on a computer. Historians study ancient documents to learn what life was like hundreds of years ago. Scientists write up their discoveries in documents called research papers. When you save your writing on a computer, you're saving it as a document.

The word also works as a verb: to document something means to record it carefully. If you document your science experiment by writing down each step and result, you're creating a record others can study. Photographers document important events by taking pictures. Documentary films document real life rather than telling made-up stories.