Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
Citing a dataset with a resolvable DOI, in a formal reference-list entry alongside the paper's other citations, rather than only naming the repository in a footnote or acknowledgements section
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
Writing "data available from the authors upon request" with no persistent identifier satisfies none of the eight principles — it provides neither a stable identifier, verifiable access, nor a citable, machine-interoperable record
Editorial commentary
The data citation principles are eight normative statements about what it means to cite a dataset properly. They were set out in FORCE11’s 2014 Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles — this term covers the content of the eight principles themselves; see that linked term for the document’s own history and governance.
The eight principles
(1) Importance — data citations should be accorded the same importance in the scholarly record as citations to published literature. (2) Credit and attribution — citations should facilitate credit and legal attribution to all contributors to the data, recognising that a single style may not apply to all data. (3) Evidence — in publications relying on data, a citation should be provided for every dataset used, even if the data is not deposited elsewhere. (4) Unique identification — a citation should include a method for identifying the dataset that is machine-resolvable, globally unique, and widely used by a community (typically a DataCite DOI). (5) Access — citations should facilitate access to the data itself and its metadata, documentation, and other materials necessary for its interpretation. (6) Persistence — identifiers and metadata should persist, even beyond the life of the dataset they describe. (7) Specificity and verifiability — citations should identify precisely the version and subset of data used, to support verification and reuse. (8) Interoperability and flexibility — citation methods should be as machine-interoperable as possible across systems, and accommodate community and technology variation.
Why this matters in practice
Applying these principles is what distinguishes a proper data citation from an informal data mention: a proper citation lets a reader locate the exact dataset version used, verify a study’s results, and gives the data’s creators the same scholarly credit an author receives for a cited paper. The Declaration has been endorsed by over a hundred publisher, funder, and infrastructure organisations, and its principles underpin later, more implementation-focused work such as the FAIR Principles and journal data-availability requirements.
References
- Data Citation Synthesis Group, ‘Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles’, FORCE11, San Diego, 2014.
Also known as
Force11 data citation principles
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Data citation principle"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/data-citation-principle" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/data-citation-principle",
"name": "Data citation principle",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/data-citation-principle",
"description": "The data citation principles are the eight normative rules — importance, credit and attribution, evidence, unique identification, access, persistence, specificity and verifiability, and interoperability — set out in FORCE11’s 2014 Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles, defining what it means to cite a dataset properly rather than merely mentioning it in prose.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/data-infrastructure#set",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/data-citation-principle",
"alternateName": [
"Force11 data citation principles"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"publisher": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
},
"author": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#editorial-team"
},
"datePublished": "2026-05-21T02:20:10",
"dateModified": "2026-09-06T19:30:56",
"inLanguage": "en-GB",
"isAccessibleForFree": true
}
