Use these tools to help you organize and cite your references:

If you have questions after consulting this guide about how to cite, please contact your advisor/professor or the writing and communication center.

Cite data in your paper/presentation so that you can:

• Give the data producer appropriate credit
• Enable readers of your work to access the data, for their own use and to replicate your results
• Fulfills some publisher requirements

Include in your citation:

• Author(s)
• Title
• Year of publication
• Publisher or distributor
• URL, identifier, or other access location

Using citation software or style guides? In Endnote use the reference type for "dataset." If you're using Mendeley or Zotero, make due with using other more generic reference type templates and fill in the essentials for your dataset.

Want detailed guidelines for citing data?  See:

• Quick Guide to Data Citation (IASSIST)
• How to Cite Data (MSU)
• How to Cite Datasets and Link to Publications (DCC)

Examples of data citations include:

• Cite a complete dataset, e.g.:
  • Bachman, Jerald G., Lloyd D. Johnston, and Patrick M. O'Malley. Monitoring the Future: A Continuing Study of American Youth (12th-Grade Survey), 1998 [Computer file]. Conducted by University of Michigan, Survey Research Center. ICPSR02751-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [producer and distributor], 2006-05-15. http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02751.
  • ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model, version 1, ASTGTM_N11E122_num.tif, ASTGTM_N11E123_num.tif, Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) of Japan and NASA, downloaded from https://wist.echo.nasa.gov/api/, October 27, 2009
• Cite a subject archive entry, e.g.:
  Genbank accession number, available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.

Data archives may provide guidelines on how to cite the data, e.g.,:

• Data catalogs like the Harvard Dataverse Network and ICPSR have standard citations included in the study record.
• ICPSR: Why and how should I cite data?
• How to Cite Roper Center Data
• Dryad Good Data Practices
• Earth Science Information Partner Federation Data Stewardship/Citations
• NOAA Paleoclimatology Program: Data Citation
• PANGEA Citation
• Citing and linking to the Gene Expression Omnibus (NCBI) database

As Zotero lacks an "item type" for datasets, enter the citation in the system as a "Document," depending upon if/how the data producer provides a recommended citation; either:

• Export an RIS file and import this file into Zotero
• Copy and paste the information from a recommended citation into a new Zotero item with the type "Document"
• Otherwise, use the "Document" item type to add the components of the citation