Why do journals insist that data ‘are’?
31st May 2012
Given the controversy over this grammatical point, I argue that journal style guides should allow both 'data is' and 'data are'. I was recently directed (via @blefurgy and @deb_lavoy on Twitter) to an old blog post on something that frequently bugs me: the question of whether the word 'data' is singular or plural. The post, by Norman Gray, an astronomical data management researcher at Glasgow University, UK, dates from 2005 but I haven't seen a better one on the topic. Gray argues that: ...the... Read more
(10) comments