Citing data is as important as citing traditional publications and journals. By citing data in your publications, you are linking your publication to the data, increasing the ability for others to discover and reproduce your research.
Although commonly used, major style guides such as APA, MLA, etc., do not always address the dynamic nature of data. That is why it is recommended to either identify the style format typically used in your discipline, identify recommendations from data depositories, or identify citation styles that a funding agency prefers. In general, your data citation should include the following elements:
- Name of all authors that produced the data
- Title of data
- A unique persistent digital identifier such as a DOI or a link to the data
- Date data was published, and version number
- Date and time the data was accessed for use
- Distributer of the data
UT Dallas Lib Guides
Visit the UT Dallas Citation Resources page to identify citation styles typically used by majors.
| APA | MLA | Chicago/Turabian |
| Engineering Psychology Social Sciences Sociology | Humanities Liberal Arts Literature | Humanities History Natural Sciences Religion Social Sciences |
Examples from Purdue University
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA), 6th Edition
Pew Hispanic Center. (2004). Changing channels and crisscrossing cultures: A survey of Latinos on the news media [Data file and code book].
Retrieved from http://pewhispanic.org/datasets/
Style Manual for Political Science, Revised 2006, APSA
Purdue University. 2007. Controversial Facilities in Japan, 1955-1995 [computer file] (Study #4725). ICPSR04725-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2007. doi:10.3886/ICPSR04725.
Citing Medicine, 2nd Edition, National Library of Medicine (NLM)
Entrez Genome [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine (US), National Center for Biotechnology Information. [date unknown]. Haloarcula marismortui ATCC 43049plasmid pNG200, complete sequence; [cited 2007 Feb 27]. Available from: http://www. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db= genome&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=Overview&list_uids=180
NIH Citation Formats
The NIH does not require a specific citation format. From the NIH website:
- We do not require a specific citation format.
- The use of “et al.” in place of listing all authors of a publication is acceptable practice.
- Most style guides include format guidance for citations and all formats are acceptable.
- SciENcv, a tool to prepare biosketches for NIH and other agencies, uses a standard format used by the National Library of Medicine (see Citing Medicine) If your organization does not already have a standard, you may want to consider this one.
- Remember to comply with our public access policy by including the PMC reference number (PMCID) when citing applicable papers that you author or that arise from your NIH-funded research.
NSF Citation Formats
The NSF does not have an explicitly required citation format but has required elements that should be included in the citation. From the NSF website:
Reference information is required. Each reference must include the names of all authors (in the same sequence in which they appear in the publication), the article and journal title, book title, volume number, page numbers, and year of publication. If the document is available electronically, the website address also should be identified.19 Proposers must be especially careful to follow accepted scholarly practices in providing citations for source materials relied upon when preparing any section of the proposal. While there is no established page limitation for the references, this section must include bibliographic citations only and must not be used to provide parenthetical information outside of the 15-page project description.
ORCID
Keep your citations organized and stored in a centralized location with ORCID. Use ORCID to import citations into 3rd party systems, saving you time. Learn more about ORCID.