On this page
Updated . Example details checked against data.census.gov, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2022 release.
The MLA format
Pattern
Author. Title of Dataset. Version, Publisher, Year, URL or DOI.
- Author: the person, team or agency that made the data. When it matches the publisher, as with the Census Bureau here, give it once as the publisher and start with the title.
- Title in italics, as the data page writes it.
- Version after the title, when the data comes in numbered versions.
- DOI in place of the URL when the repository gives one, written as https://doi.org/...
The whole survey or one table?
Cite what you used. If your numbers come from one table, name the table in your sentence (the Census Bureau’s table S1501 on educational attainment, for example) or cite the table page itself as a web page with its own title and URL.
A real example
Works Cited entry
American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates. U.S. Census Bureau, 2022, data.census.gov.
In-text citation
(American Community Survey 5-Year)
When details are missing
- No author or agency named: start with the title.
- Data that updates continuously: add the date you downloaded it at the end: Accessed 2 Nov. 2026.
The rules for a missing author, date or page in every style are in no author, date or page.
Common mistakes
- The title in quotation marks. A dataset stands on its own, so its title is italic.
- The repository as author. A repository such as ICPSR or Kaggle publishes data others made. The makers are the author.
Or let Format do it.
Choose Dataset and fill in the author or agency, the title, the publisher or repository, the year, and the DOI or link. Format writes the Works Cited entry and the in-text citation in MLA 9, exactly as shown above, and builds the Works Cited page when you export to Word or PDF. MLA and APA are free.
Questions
How do I shorten a long title in the text?
Use its opening words, in italics, as Format does here: (American Community Survey 5-Year).
Do I cite the data or the article that used it?
Whichever you used. If you took figures from an article, cite the article.
More citation guides
The same source in other styles
Similar sources in MLA
Every source kind is on the MLA page, and every style is on How to cite.