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Reference guide for APA 7th edition

Reference guide for APA 7th edition intended for students at the department of Biology and CEC, Lund University. NB! If you access the guide using a smartphone, the text will open below the menu.

Data sets

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The instructions on this page concern references to data sets. Some data sets will have a group author, e.g. organization, company or authority, instead of a personal author. If the group author is the same as the publisher, omit the site name from the reference. For data sets where the content is designed to change over time, you conclude the reference with information on the retrieval date in addition to the URL in the format “Retrieved Month DD, YYYY, from http://xxxx”.

If a DOI has been assigned to the data set, you should include this number after the name of the publisher. If no DOI has been assigned and you are accessing the data online, use the URL of the website from which it was retrieved.

Do not forget to consult the general instructions on how to write references according to APA (7th edition), including 

Template for how to format references to data sets in the reference list

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (YYYY). Title of data set (Version #) [Data set]. Publisher. DOI or URL

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (n.d.). Title of data set (Version #) [Data set]. Publisher. Retrieved Month DD, YYYY, from URL

Examples of in-text references to data sets

Parenthetical citation Narrative citation
(Dunn & Møller, 2014) Data from Dunn and Møller (2014)...
(Mehta et al., 2017) Mehta et al. (2017) collected data...
(Statistics Sweden, n.d.) According to the data from Statistics Sweden (2019)...
(Naturvårdsverket, n.d.) ...using data from Naturvårdsverket (n.d.).

Examples of references to data sets in the reference list

Dunn, P. O., & Møller, A. P. (2014). Data from: Changes in breeding phenology and population size of birds [Data set]. Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.bp3g0

European Environment Agency. (2022, September 21). Air pollutants by source sector [Data set]. Eurostat. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/ENV_AIR_EMIS/default/table?lang=en&category=env.env_air.env_air_ai

Eurostat. (2022, September 13). Generation of waste by waste category [Data set]. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/TEN00108/default/table?lang=en&category=env.env_was.env_wasgt

Mehta, D., Stürchler, A., Anjanappa, R., Syed, S. A., Hirsch-Hoffmann, M., Gruissem, W., & Vanderschuren, H. (2017). Data: Linking CRISPR-Cas9 interference in cassava to the evolution of editing-resistant geminiviruses (Version 2) [Data set]. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2602162

Statistics Sweden. (n.d.). National parks and nature reserves in marine surroundings by region, observations and year [Data set]. SCB Statistical database. Retrieved December 13, 2021, from http://www.statistikdatabasen.scb.se/sq/80569

Naturvårdsverket. (n.d.). Kvävedioxid de senaste 24 timmarna [Nitrogen dioxide the last 24 hours] [Data set]. Retrieved December 3, 2018, from https://www.naturvardsverket.se/Sa-mar-miljon/Statistik-A-O/kvavedioxid-realtidsdata/