APA 7th edition
How to cite a dataset in APA 7th edition
Datasets have versions. Citing one without its version number or DOI makes your analysis impossible for anyone else to reproduce.
THE FORMAT
A dataset in APA, at a glance
Creator, A. A., & Creator, B. B. (Year). Title of the dataset (Version x.x) [Data set]. Repository Name. https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx
Farrow, K., & Adeyemi, T. (2022). Multilingual student revision corpus (Version 2.1) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7654321
(Farrow & Adeyemi, 2022)
In prose: Farrow and Adeyemi (2022) released the corpus with revision timestamps attached to every draft.
Farrow, K. (2023). Campus writing center intake log [Data set]. Northfield State University Dataverse. Retrieved March 4, 2024, from https://dataverse.northfield.edu/intake-log
In text: (Farrow, 2023)
Copyeditor formats APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE automatically — cite a source once and the references builds itself. See how citations work .
BEFORE YOU FORMAT
What APA needs from a dataset
Elements to collect
- Creator or creators of the dataset
- Year the version you used was published
- Title of the dataset
- Version number
- Repository that hosts it
- DOI or persistent identifier
- Description of the format, when the style asks for one
Rules specific to this entry
- Cite the version you actually analyzed, and use that version’s release year. Citing the project rather than the version makes your results impossible to reproduce.
- The version goes in parentheses before the bracketed [Data set] descriptor, which tells a reader this is not the paper that reported the data.
- The repository takes the publisher slot, and the DOI ends the entry as a plain link. Most research repositories mint one; use it in preference to the landing-page URL.
- Data you collected yourself is described in the method section, not cited. Give it a reference entry only once you have deposited it somewhere a reader can reach.
Building the entry, step by step
Collect the details
Before you format anything, gather every element APA needs for a dataset: Creator or creators of the dataset; Year the version you used was published; Title of the dataset; Version number.
Build the references entry
Arrange those details in the APA order: Creator, A. A., & Creator, B. B. (Year). Title of the dataset (Version x.x) [Data set]. Repository Name. https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx
Add the in-text citation
In the body of your paper, cite it as (Farrow & Adeyemi, 2022) — or work the same reference into your sentence as Farrow and Adeyemi (2022) released the corpus with revision timestamps attached to every draft..
Check it against the exceptions
Cite the version you actually analyzed, and use that version’s release year. Citing the project rather than the version makes your results impossible to reproduce.
APA RULES
The conventions behind every APA entry
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.) is the authority. Where a journal or department publishes its own house rules, those win — check your submission guidelines before the references is final.
The rules that apply across every source — author order, capitalization, how the references is sorted, and where APA entries most often go wrong — are collected on the APA 7th edition guide.
The same dataset in another style
Switching styles late in a draft is normal. Here is the same source formatted five other ways.
Questions about APA and datasets
What if the dataset has no author?
Move the title into the author position and alphabetize by the first significant word of that title — ignoring an initial “A”, “An” or “The”. In the text, use a shortened form of the title where the author name would go.
What do I need before I can cite a dataset?
Creator or creators of the dataset, Year the version you used was published, Title of the dataset, and the rest of the elements listed above. Datasets have versions. Citing one without its version number or DOI makes your analysis impossible for anyone else to reproduce.
Is there anything unusual about a dataset in APA?
Cite the version you actually analyzed, and use that version’s release year. Citing the project rather than the version makes your results impossible to reproduce.
What else catches people out here?
The version goes in parentheses before the bracketed [Data set] descriptor, which tells a reader this is not the paper that reported the data.
Can I reformat this dataset in another style later?
By hand, you would retype the entry — the element order, punctuation and italics all differ between styles. In Copyeditor, sources are stored as structured data, so switching between APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE reformats every citation and the whole reference list at once.
Cite it once
and never reformat it again
Copyeditor keeps sources as structured data, so switching between APA, MLA, Chicago and IEEE reformats every citation and the whole references at once.
