Data sets require citations for the same reasons journal articles and other types of publications require citations: to acknowledge the original author/producer and to help other researchers find the resource.
A dataset citation includes all of the same components as any other citation:
Be sure to follow the general citation format for the style manual your professor has asked you to use. It is always better to provide more information about a resource rather than less!
Booth Library owns the most recent copies of style format guides - they are available at the Library's Information Desk. See also...
(1) If this is the citation for the article containing a graph or chart or image that you want to reference:
Woodruff, Paul H. 2006. "Educating Engineers to Create a Sustainable Future." Journal of Environmental Engineering 132, no. 4: 434-444. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed December 14, 2007).
(2) Then you would use that article citation as the foundation for a new citation for the graph or chart or image you will be using in your paper, here is the new citation:
Woodruff, Paul H. 2006. "Earth's population." Graph. Journal of Environmental Engineering 132, no. 4: 435. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed December 14, 2007).
In other words in the example above by Professor Woodruff that is titled: "Educating Engineers to Create a Sustainable Future." There is a graph titled "Earth's population." The second citation illustrates how you could cite just the graph that is embedded in that article.
Citation examples courtesy EBSCO