EC Library Guide on persistent identifiers: Citing and Referencing
Citing and referencing
PIDs and Referencing
Including the persistent identifier in the reference will ensure that the publication or dataset can be located easily. Whereas a reference to a publication will contain the journal or other publishing venue in which the publication is published, a reference to a dataset will include the data repository.
When a PID is available for use in a citation, failing to include it will lead to avoidable ambiguity and uncertainty.
How to display the identifiers
Please consult the Interinstitutional Style Guide for relevant advice on how to display the different identifiers following the internationally accepted rules and conventions.
Citing and referencing guides
- Interinstitutional Style Guide [website] | Publications Office of the European Union
The Interinstitutional Style Guide is the reference tool for those involved in document production in the European Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies. This internal tool, first published in 1997 in 11 languages and now available in each of the 24 official EU languages, contains uniform style rules and conventions that have been drafted based on cooperation between the various linguistic services of the institutions, with the aim of presenting a consistent identity for EU publications. Its constantly updated and improved content serves authors, translators, lawyer-linguists, terminologists, editors and proofreaders. See in particular the section 5.9.4. Bibliographic references.
- Data citation: A guide to best practice
Publications Office of the European Union, 2022.
The publication “Data citation : a guide to best practice” is a practical guide that includes recommendations and best practices on how to cite data. It is divided in 3 parts: part 1 - issues in data citation, general recommendations; part 2 - recommendations on specific formats and other elements for data citation and part 3 - other information (e.g. specific differences between recommendations).