There are many different style manuals used for citing data. We don’t have a preference for the style manual that you use and have one simple ask, which is to include “FGDL” and/or “Florida Geographic Data Library” somewhere in your research. That can be as simple as putting “www.fgdl.org” anywhere in your journal article, web map, or printed map, or listing the Florida Geographic Data Library as publisher in a citation.
Washington University in St. Louis has a helpful webpage granting an overview of how to cite GIS data. In general, the following elements will be used in a citation:
- Author(s): Who created the data? an organization, individual, group of individuals
- Title: The name of the study or title of the dataset
- Year of Publication: The year the data was shared online
- Publisher: Who published the data, or the location of where the data was found. A good potential place to cite FGDL.
- Edition/Version: The version of the data covered in the dataset; often the year(s) the data describes
- Access Information: URL/doi where data was found, and date it was accessed. Another good place to cite FGDL.
Below are some examples of what this might look like for FGDL data, using different citation styles. Mouse over each section to see what it corresponds to in the citation style. GISGeography explains how to cite in different contexts and gives examples here.
When citing FGDL in a journal article, you can use a style guide of your choice. List the Florida Geographic Data Library as the publisher.
APA
MLA
When using FGDL data in a website or web map, include either "Florida Geographic Data Library" or "FGDL" somewhere on the site.
When using FGDL data in a print map, include either "Florida Geographic Data Library" or "FGDL" somewhere on the map.
When using FGDL data in a video, include either "Florida Geographic Data Library" or "FGDL" somewhere in the video (through audio or text) or its description.