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University of Portland Clark Library

Data Management: Citing Data

Citing Data

Citing Data means giving credit where credit is due. Give credit to the individual or organization's data you have used.

Why is Citing Your Data Important?

You already create citations for journal articles, books, websites, and other references in your papers. Citing datasets from your research is another important step in creating a thorough record to accompany your research results.

Dataset citations help to provide context for your research and make it easier for others to replicate/work from your research. Also, funders like the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other private and public funding agencies are now encouraging, if not requiring, that data sharing be made a priority in order to gain funding from their institution.

Data Citation Components

A dataset citation includes all of the same components as any other citation:
  1. author,
  2. title,
  3. year of publication,
  4. publisher (for data this is often the archive where it is housed),
  5. edition or version, and
  6. access information (a URL or other persistent identifier)

Data Citation Examples

See sample citations for data sets, statistical graphs, and tables in APA, MLA, or Chicago style:

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