APA 7th Citation Guide

General Guidelines

Author element

• A lot of data sets are produced by government agencies. When several layers of government agencies are listed as the group author, use the most specific agency as the author in the reference.
  • E.g. Use National Center for Injury Prevention and Control not the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 
• If multiple agencies jointly worked on a data set, connect the names with an ampersand, i.e. an &, followed by commas to separate the names of three or more agencies.
• If the publisher is the same as the author, omit the publisher.

Date element

• Provide the year of publication for the version of the data used.

Title element

• Case and emphasis:
  • Write the title in italics and in sentence case. 
  • If there is no title for unpublished raw data then describe it in regular font in square brackets. 
• Identifying & Version numbers: When a numerical identifier and/or a version number exists, include it in parentheses after the title e.g. (ICPSR 37329; Version V1)
• Bracketed description: Follow the version # or title with the description of the type of data in square brackets, in sentence case. The bracketed description is flexible, e.g. [Data set]; [Unpublished data]; [Data set and codebook] 

Source element

• Case and emphasis: Put the publisher or source location in regular font and in title case, unless it is known by its acronym, e.g. ICPSR. 
• Online retrieval info: Insert the DOI and if no DOI, then a freely accessible URL at the end. Otherwise, leave blank. 

Ensure your formatting is correct

• ​Follow our red format structure and view our examples in black. E.g. For the elements of the reference we have italicized, you also italicize that same element in your reference.

Use the following template to help you build citations even if the APA manual does not explicitly address your type of data set:

Format

Data set with DOI

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year of publication). Title of work in sentence case (Identifier #; Version #) [Data set]. Publisher in Title Case. https://doi.org/xxxx

Data set from freely available URL

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year of publication). Title of work in sentence case (Identifier #; Version #) [Data set]. Publisher in Title Case. http://xxxx

Examples

Data set with DOI

Griffin, M., & Hepburn, J. (2020). Effects of stress among correctional officers, United States, 2017-2018 (ICPSR 37329; Version V1) [Data set]. ICPSR. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37329.v1

Data set from freely available URL

Sander, C., & Schmidt, A. (n.d.). MC: Single top sample from the CMS Help Tutorial [Data set]. CERN. http://opendata.cern.ch/record/210

Citing In-Text: Example of one of the references

(Sander & Schmidt, n.d.) OR Sander & Schmidt (n.d.) 

For more detailed guidelines on in-text citations go to our Citing In-Text tab.

Format

Data set with DOI

Group Author. (Year of publication). Title of work in sentence case (Identifier #; Version #) [Data set]. Publisher - if same as group author then omit. https://doi.org/xxxx

Data set from freely available URL

Group Author. (Year of publication). Title of work in sentence case (Identifier #; Version #) [Data set]. Publisher  - if same as group author then omit. http://xxxx

Examples

Data set with DOI

National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. (2020). Firearm injury surveillance study, 1993-2016 (ICPSR 37694; Version V1) [Data set]. ICPSR. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37694.v1

Data set from freely available URL

World Bank. (2018). Worldwide bureaucracy indicators [Data set]. https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/dataset/worldwide-bureaucracy-indicators

Citing In-Text: Example of one of the references

(World Bank, 2018) OR World Bank (2018)

For more detailed guidelines on in-text citations go to our Citing In-Text tab.

Format

With title

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of work in sentence case [Unpublished raw data]. Source of Unpublished Raw Data in Title Case. 

Group Author. (Year). Title of work in sentence case [Unpublished raw data]. Source of Unpublished Raw Data in Title Case. 

Without title

Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). [Unpublished raw data on... provide description]. Source of Unpublished Raw Data in Title Case. 

Group Author. (Year). [Unpublished raw data on... provide description]. Source of Unpublished Raw Data in Title Case. 

Examples 

Examples are from the APA Style Manual, Section 10.9 Data Sets 76: Unpublished raw data

Titled; Source unknown

Oregon Youth Authority. (2011). Recidivism outcomes [Unpublished raw data]. 

Untitled; Source known

Baer, R. A. (2015). [Unpublished raw data on the correlations between the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills]. University of Kentucky. 

Citing In-Text: Example of one of the references

(Baer, 2015) OR Baer (2015)

For more detailed guidelines on in-text citations go to our Citing In-Text tab.

For more details and examples on how to reference data sets and raw data, please consult the following section in the APA 7th Publication Manual:

Section 10.9 Data Sets 75-76 

Augusta University provides free access to EndNote citation management tool students, faculty, and staff.

If you use EndNote to input your references, then choose the reference type underneath. If you export or import your citations, then check that EndNote automatically categorized them to the below reference type:

Reference Type: Dataset.

• Distributor field: 
  • Use this field to input the bracketed description of data followed by the publisher or the source location of unpublished data in the way that it is supposed to appear in the reference.
    • e.g. [Data set]. ICPSR.
    • e.g. [Unpublished raw data on the correlations between the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire and the Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills]. University of Kentucky. 
• Study Number field: Input the data set number and any acronyms that precede it in the Study Number field.
  • e.g. ICPSR 37329
• Version field: For the Version number, just put V followed by the number, e.g. V1. EndNote will automatically put the word Version before it.