Properly Cite GIS & Tabular Datasets

The Statistics Canada: How to Cite Statistics Canada Products is truly a remarkable resource. Do not let the title fool you, however, as this citation wizard will help to create a citation using virtually any GIS or tabular dataset.

This Resource Can Help Cite any GIS or Tabular Dataset

As more and more faculty across campus begin to use and encourage their students to use GIS in their analyses, this question pops up more and more: So, how do I cite this in my paper?...in my thesis?

No sweat, right? Crack open those highly unpleasant MLA, APA, Chicago, CSE style manuals to no avail. In their own convoluted way, these manuals provide bibliographic citation assistance for some materials (for example, books, articles, film, audio, even print maps) but little or no attention is devoted to GIS or tabular datasets. As the Statistics Canada site states, "Citing statistics and data has been a neglected grey area in academic publishing."

As mentioned on the Data Library News Blog at the University of Saskatchewan Library, Statistics Canada recently added this revised How to Cite Statistics Canada Products resource on their website.

Other resources out there to help you to cite GIS & tabular datasets include:

• University of Waterloo Library: Citing Geospatial Data Resources
• Dartmouth College Library: I Need to Cite Maps Created in GIS
  
• U.S. Census Bureau: Suggested Citation Styles
• CDC: How to Cite Electronic Media

The University of Saskatchewan Library, has a webpage entitled How to Cite Data Files which provides links to the most useful resources.