MLA 9 dataset citation format
Creator Last, First. Dataset Title. Version #, Repository Name, Day Month Year. DOI or URL.
Example (Zenodo):
Müller, Carsten, et al. Global Crop Yields 1981–2016. Version 1.2, Zenodo, 14 May 2019. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2819034.
Example (Kaggle)
Chen, Lisa. House Price Prediction Dataset. Kaggle, 3 Feb. 2023, www.kaggle.com/datasets/lisachen/house-prices.
Example (government data portal)
United States, Census Bureau. American Community Survey 5-Year Data 2022. data.census.gov, 8 Dec. 2023, data.census.gov/table/ACSST5Y2022.S0101.
Key rules
- Dataset title is italicised
- Include the version number if one is specified
- Always include the DOI if the repository assigns one — it is the stable, permanent identifier
- For datasets with many authors, use the first author followed by “et al.”
In-text citation
(Müller et al.) or (Chen)
If you reference specific variables or rows, note them in your prose rather than the citation.