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Data Repositories

Data Repositories

Why cite data?

 

Citing data is as important as citing any other source. It

  1. allows readers of your work to locate the data you used and further the work on the topic, and
  2. credits the collector/author of that data, which can in turn provide justification for further research or funding.

 

General Guidelines*

  • Provide citations for datasets when you have either conducted secondary analyses of publicly archived data or have archived your own data and are presenting it for the first time in the current work.
  • If citing existing data or statistics, cite the journal, book, or website where the data was published, rather than the dataset itself.
  • The date in the reference is the publication year of the version of the data used. 

 

 

*APA Style. (February 2020). Data Set References. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/data-set-references

How to cite your datasets

Citing in specific styles:

Pew Hispanic Center. (2002). Changing channels and crisscrossing cultures: A survey of Latinos on the new Media [Data file and code book]. https://pewhispanic.org/datasets/

1. NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (object name IRAS F00400+4059; accessed April 6, 2016), http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/.

2. GenBank (for RP11-322N14 BAC [accession number AC087526.3]; accessed April 6, 2016), http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/19683167.

* GenBank (for RP11-322N14 BAC [accession number AC087526.3]; accessed April 6, 2016). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/19683167.

* NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (object name IRAS F00400+4059; accessed April 6, 2016). http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/.

MLA does not have specific guidelines for citing datasets, so general rules for citing a website can be used:

Pew Hispanic Center. Changing channels and crisscrossing cultures: A survey of Latinos on the news media. (Data file and code book). Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2004. Web. 19 Sep 2011. <http://pewhispanic.org/datasets/signup.php?DatasetID=5>

 

How to cite data from specific repositories:

  • Cite ICPSR datasets This page offers guidelines and best practices for citing social science research data in order to promote vigorous and consistent attribution of datasets.
  • DataCite provides persistent identifiers (DOIs) for research data and other research outputs.