Citing Data | Citing Code

Cite Your Own Data

Are you publishing a paper referencing your research data? Include a reference to your data in the text of the paper with a data availability statement and add a data citation to your references section.

This will ensure that the data citation becomes part of the scholarly record and provides pathways for others to find your work. Research funders also want you to share data and a citation is proof of your data being shared.

If you are depositing data with the UI, we can reserve a DOI for your dataset, so you can include it in the article submission. We can also assist with sharing and publishing data. More here

Cite Others’ Data

Give credit to other data sources when you use them, just as you do when using published literature. Whether for a paper or a presentation, it’s important to cite the data files used.

Citation Elements for Data

A data citation should include at least the following elements. The specific information will depend on established practices in your research field, as well as the type of data, the repository you use, and the citation style of the publication.

  • Responsible party (i.e., investigator, sample collector, creator)
  • Title of dataset
  • Date of publication of the dataset
  • Version, when appropriate
  • Name of data center, repository, and/or publication
  • Analysis software, if required
  • Date accessed
  • Identifier (e.g., DOI or other persistent link)

Tip: Citation formatters
If you have a DOI, you can use the CrossCite DOI data citation formatter or the DataCite citation formatter to create citations corresponding to a variety of citation styles.

Most data repositories will provide a suggested citation for their datasets. Some will also request that you cite the related publication(s) along with the data. Follow the most appropriate format while meeting the requirements of the data creators and repositories.

Guidelines and Examples

Citation style guides/manuals are beginning to include data as a resource type. The Citation Formatters (above) will provide the information in a style that approximates style requirements, so you may want to confirm that those generated citations completely follow a particular citation style guide.

Here are some examples of guidelines:

Cite Code

Citing code (your own and that of others) is equally important as citing data, and for similar reasons: you’re providing appropriate credit, facilitating reproducibility, and ensuring future researchers can find and use the code.

Citation Elements for Code

  • Creator (i.e., authors or organization who developed the software)
  • Title
  • Identifier (e.g., DOI or other persistent link)
  • Date of publication
  • Version
  • Publisher (e.g., repository name)

Guidelines and Examples

The Force11 Software Citation Implementation Working Group has created principles for software citation. Their GitHub page shows examples of citing software in both APA and Chicago Style.
https://www.lib.uiowa.edu/data/cite-data-and-code/
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