How do I cite research data?
The use and analysis of research data and resulting publications requires credit attribution and location/retrieval information. Corresponding to bibliographic citation of publications the GESIS recommends a minimal standard for the scholarly citation of archive based data sets, in the following referred to as "data file" or "research data".
Minimal standard recommended for the citation of research data
The details of a "Citation" can be found in tab "Bibliographic Citation" in the GESIS Data Catalogue (DC). The data in the DC refers to the current version of the data record. A citation for older versions can be found under 'Errata & Versions'.
The citation is composed of:
[Principal Investigators] ([Version Year]): [Title]. [Data Collector]. GESIS, Cologne. [Study Number] Data file Version [Version Number], [DOI]
Example: Schmitt, Hermann; Popa, Sebastian Adrian; Devinger, Felix (2015): European Parliament Election Study 2014, Voter Study, Supplementary Study. GESIS, Cologne. ZA5161 Data file Version 1.0.0, doi:10.4232/1.5161
Bibliographic citation of study related documents and documentations of research data
In addition to data files a study may comprise further data depositor’s original documents and materials processed by GESIS: for example code sheets, codebook, data handbook, questionnaires or reports. It is recommended to acknowledge respective documents from GESIS' holdings in publications by means of bibliographic citations including the Study ID.
Notes
Notes:
[Principal Investigators] | If there are many principal investigators a name for the group is used instead of the person names. If person names are used, a maximum of 10 person names are stated, after that 'et.al.' is used for abbreviation. |
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([Version Year]): | The year refers to the data file and is taken from the date of the version, except if the version date is empty or '2010-04-13'. In this case a special 'publication year' is used, if available. If not available 'n.d.' is stated, because not in all cases the original publication year is known. |
[Title]. | Title of the study in accordance with the DC |
[Data Collector]. | In some cases the data collector is stated in addition. |
| GESIS, Cologne. | Name of the data provider |
[Study Number] | "ZA" + "four-digit study number", e.g. "ZA5161" |
Data file Version | |
[Version Number], | e. g. "2.0.0" of the data file. |
[DOI] | Digital Object Identifier, e.g. "doi:10.4232/1.5161" of the data file - What is a DOI? |