Having trouble accessing government information? See the Libraries’ guide to Alternative Sources for Federal Information and Data.

How to Cite Data: Additional Resources

The purpose of citations is to enable others to find the same sources you used. Data are like any other source and should be cited in your bibliography and your writing.

Library Data Services

Library Data Services caters to researchers interested in working with data, mapping, texts, visualization, and technology. Many of these services are available online. Davis Library Data Services, located on the second floor of Davis Library, offers:

A computing lab with specialized software for GIS and data visualization & analysis.
Walk-in assistance provided by knowledgeable student consultants during set hours.
Consultations with specialists for more in-depth inquiries (by appointment).
Spaces for collaboration and presentation, complete with white boards and external displays.
Technology short courses and programs that promote digital scholarship.

How to Cite Frequently Used Data Sources

These instructions cover citations for specific commonly-cited sources.

ArcGIS Online - "Displaying copyrights on ArcGIS Online content"
Citing Data and Maps from American FactFinder
Citing Data from the Roper Center
Citing Simply Map
Note that these examples are in APA format. If you need to follow a different style guide, you'll need to reformat your citations.
IASSIST's guide (via ICPSR)
The International Association for Social Science Information Services & Technology offers a data citation guide with examples in various citation styles.
ICPSR's YouTube video about citing data
Explains why to cite and where to find ICPSR's citation for each study.
NHGIS Citation and Use

See this guide's Numeric Data tab for examples from Social Explorer.

Relevant Projects and Organizations

ORCID
"ORCID is an open, non-profit, community-based effort to provide a registry of unique researcher identifiers and a transparent method of linking research activities and outputs to these identifiers."
DataCite
DataCite is a not-for-profit organization whose aim is to establish easier access to research data on the Internet, increase acceptance of research data as legitimate, citable contributions to the scholarly record, and support data archiving that will permit results to be verified and re-purposed for future study.
The Dataverse Project - Data Citations
"The Dataverse Project standardizes the citation of datasets to make it easier for researchers to publish their data and get credit as well as recognition for their work."