How to Cite a Dataset

A dataset is a citable work with an author, a date, a title and a persistent identifier, and the major styles all treat it as one. What makes data different from an article is the version: the file you downloaded in March may not be the file the same link serves in December. Every format below therefore has somewhere to put a version or edition number, and leaving it out is the single most common mistake in a data reference.

What to Collect

• The investigator(s) or the producing agency, in the order the repository lists them
• The year that version was released or distributed
• The full title of the dataset as the repository gives it
• The version or edition number, and the repository's study number if it has one
• The repository or distributor (ICPSR, Dryad, Zenodo, figshare, the UK Data Service, a national statistics office)
• The DOI, preferring the version-specific one, or the landing-page URL
• The date you downloaded it, for the styles that ask for one

The worked example throughout is a real study: the Survey of Prison Inmates, United States, 2016, produced by the United States Bureau of Justice Statistics and distributed by the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research as study 37692, version 1, released in 2020, DOI 10.3886/ICPSR37692.v1. Every element was checked against the DataCite record for that DOI on 22 September 2026.

Quick Reference by Major Style

APA (7th Edition)

In-text: (United States Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2020)

The bracketed [Data set] description sits after the title and any version, before the period. APA's own Common Reference Examples handout shows the same shape with a different ICPSR study; note that in the copy of that handout downloaded on 22 September 2026 the parenthetical study number (ICPSR 21600) does not match the DOI in the same reference (10.3886/ICPSR36966.v1, which is study 36966). That is a useful reminder rather than a rule: check the study number against the DOI yourself, because reference managers copy whichever one the record happens to carry.

For a dataset you produced and did not deposit anywhere:

MLA (9th Edition)

MLA has no dataset template of its own. You build the entry from the template of core elements: the producer goes in the Author slot, the dataset title in Title of Source, the repository in Title of Container, and the version, publication date and DOI in the version, date and location slots.

In-text: (United States, Bureau of Justice Statistics)

MLA's rule for organisational authors, stated on the MLA Style Center and quoting the MLA Handbook, is that a work published by the organisation that wrote it begins with the title and lists the organisation only as publisher, but that a division or committee of a larger body is listed as the author with the parent body as publisher. (MLA flags that post as eighth-edition content, so check it against the ninth edition.) Here the producing agency and the distributing archive are different, so the agency stays in the author slot. Whatever begins the entry is what the in-text citation must key to.

Chicago (18th Edition)

The Chicago Manual of Style is subscription-only and its free Citation Quick Guide does not cover datasets, so the form below is the one published by Murdoch University Library in its Chicago 18th edition author-date guide, checked on 22 September 2026. Murdoch puts the words "Data from" before the title and the title in quotation marks.

In-text: (United States Bureau of Justice Statistics 2020)

Murdoch's Chicago notes and bibliography guide gives the other system's form, with the version and the source repository spelled out:

That guide also advises naming the type of source — "dataset" — whenever it is not already clear from the rest of the entry, and adding an access date when the repository is updated regularly and carries no revision date.

Harvard (Cite Them Right)

Cite Them Right is a paywalled manual, so the formats below follow two named library guides that reproduce it: the University of Sheffield Library's Harvard guide, which states that it is based on Cite Them Right (10th rev. and expanded edn), and the University of the West of England's Cite Them Right Harvard guidance, which became UWE's default style in September 2026. Both were checked on 22 September 2026. Sheffield puts a dataset title in single quotation marks and puts the version before the availability statement; one of its own examples is Office for National Statistics, Social Survey Division (2019) 'Annual Population Survey, April 2015-2016'. 6th edn. SN: 8003. doi: http://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-8003-6.

In-text: (United States Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2020)

IEEE

The IEEE Reference Guide gives datasets their own section and three variants, depending on whether you have a DOI, a DOI resolver link or only a web address. Note the unusual order: the date comes second, immediately after the author.

In-text: [1]

The guide's own worked example is a different ICPSR study and ends with the DOI in exactly this form. Where there is no DOI, it uses [Online]. Available: http://… instead.

Vancouver and AMA

Health-sciences data are cited often enough that the numbered styles have a settled shape for them. The format below is the one the University of Queensland Library publishes in its Vancouver/AMA guide, checked on 22 September 2026: the phrase "Data from:" before the title, the repository in place of a journal, and the deposit date.

Where there is no DOI, the same guide adds an access date before the URL. Journal house styles vary here more than in any other reference type, so check the instructions to authors before submission, and see the Vancouver guide for the numbering rules.

Missing Elements

No version number. Give the release or deposit date instead, and say in your methods when you downloaded the file.

No named investigator. Use the producing organisation as author. If the repository is also the producer, it appears once as author and the reference does not repeat it as publisher.

No DOI. Use the landing-page URL, not a direct download link to a file, and add an access date in Harvard and MLA. A direct file link breaks when the repository reorganises; the landing page usually survives.

No date at all. APA uses (n.d.); IEEE uses "(n.d.)" in the date position; Harvard uses (no date).

A dataset inside a supplement. If the data are a supplementary file attached to an article and have no separate identifier, cite the article and name the supplement in your text.

Common Mistakes

• Citing the paper that used the data when you analysed the data yourself
• Using the concept DOI when you analysed a specific version, so the link resolves to a later release
• Naming the repository as the author and dropping the agency that produced the data
• Leaving out the [Data set] description in APA, which is what tells the reader this is not an article
• Copying a suggested citation from a repository page without checking it against the style your department requires
• Citing a download URL rather than the persistent landing page
• Reporting the dataset title from a paper's reference list rather than from the repository record; titles get shortened in transit

Sources for These Formats

• American Psychological Association, APA Style common reference examples guide (7th ed. handout, last updated 3 March 2026), Data Set section, apastyle.apa.org
• University of Queensland Library, "APA 7th referencing style: Dataset", guides.library.uq.edu.au
• MLA Handbook, 9th ed., template of core elements, and the MLA Style Center, style.mla.org
• The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th ed. (subscription), with the free Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide; Murdoch University Library, "Chicago 18th (author-date): Datasets" and "Chicago 18th (notes-bibliography): Datasets"
• University of Sheffield Library, "Harvard referencing" (based on Cite Them Right), Dataset section; University of the West of England, "Cite Them Right Harvard"
• IEEE Reference Guide, section E, "Datasets"
• University of Queensland Library, "Vancouver/AMA referencing style: Datasets"

Full style rules: APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE, Vancouver.