Citing Datasets

Citing Published Datasets

Most current data repositories provide information on datasets citation within the metadata of the datasets. However, citing published datasets must have the author’s name, the title of the dataset, data repository or distributor, file types (it could be excel files, survey questions, codes), date of publishing, and Persistent identifier (such as the Digital Object Identifier, Uniform Resource Name URN, or Handle System), and version number  

Example:

Reference citation

Penn, Daphne. Education and Equity in the New South: Educators’ Orientation Toward Newcomers. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2021-05-26. https://doi.org/10.3886/E141241V2

Parenthetical citation

(Penn, 2021)

Narrative citation

 Penn (2021)

Citing Unpublished Dataset

Using an unpublished dataset, you can use the same citation style with few modifications. You will need to add [unpublished raw data] after the title of the data. Instead of the year of publication, you will need to add the year of data collection. See APA Manual p.338, s76.

Example:

Reference citation

Wong, S. (2017). [The effect of pepper mint tea on librarian productivity] [Unpublished raw data]. TeaSton University.