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Datasets in the Health and Medical Sciences: Referencing data

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Referencing datasets

Data and statistical tables may contain unique elements which are not commonly used by most citation styles.  Citations for data or statistical tables should include at least the following pieces of information:

  • Author or creator - the person(s) or organisation who created the dataset
  • Date of publication - the year the dataset was published.
  • Title or description - complete title 
  • Publisher  - the organisation, database, archive or journal) responsible for hosting the data 
  • URL or DOI  - the unique digital identifier 

Certain styles may also ask for additional information such as:

  • Edition or version
  • Date accessed online 
  • Format description e.g. data file, database, CD-ROM, computer software

Citing datasets in APA 7th

In APA 7th datasets are referenced as follows:

In text citation:

Author or organisation, date

(Pew Hispanic Center, 2004)

The Pew Hispanic Center (2004) reported that ....

In the Reference list:

Individual author example:

Wong, K. K., & Langevin, W. E. (2007). Policy expansion of school choice in the American states, 1991-2005 (Version 1) [Dataset]. ICPSR. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR20427.v1

Group author example:

Pew Hispanic Center. (2004). Changing channels and crisscrossing cultures: A survey of Latinos on the news media [Data file and code book]. http://pewhispanic.org/datasets/

Raw or unpublished data example:

Sherlock, D., & Mulvihill, A. (2018). MASTER Focus Program: Outline of skills [Unpublished raw data]. The University of Queensland.

Citing datasets in Vancouver

In Vancouver datasets are referenced as follows:

Template:

Investigator(s) names. Title of dataset [medium type]. Host institution name/Producer: Physical location; Year of publication [Date accessed]. Available from: Identifier – DOI or URL

Example:

1. Harrell, F. Data for Titanic passengers [Data file]. Vanderbilt University, Department of Biostatistics: Nashville, Tennessee; 2011. [cited 24 Oct 2014]. Available from: http://biostat.mc.vanderbilt.edu/wiki/pub/Main/DataSets
​/titanic.txt