Re: Feedback on 10 year FAA SLSA safety report
Posted: Sat Feb 27, 2016 3:02 pm
This from Wikipedia:
At least three style guides that favor plural are Chicago, IEEE, and APA. A data set is singular; the data in it are plural. The popular press is lenient with this usage, but technical editors for major scholarly journals (including IEEE Transactions) have slammed me on this enough times that I have caved to their demands. You can always find on the Internet support for any of the three sides of any issue. Besides, what does the Guardian know?Data is most often used as a singular mass noun in educated everyday usage.[7][8] Some major newspapers such as The New York Times use it either in the singular or plural. In the New York Times the phrases "the survey data are still being analyzed" and "the first year for which data is available" have appeared within one day.[9] The Wall Street Journal explicitly allows this usage in its style guide.[10] The Associated Press style guide classifies data as a collective noun that takes the singular when treated as a unit but the plural when referring to individual items ("The data is sound.", and "The data have been carefully collected.").[11]
In scientific writing data is often treated as a plural, as in These data do not support the conclusions, but the word is also used as a singular mass entity like information, for instance in computing and related disciplines.[12] British usage now widely accepts treating data as singular in standard English,[13] including everyday newspaper usage[14] at least in non-scientific use.[15] UK scientific publishing still prefers treating it as a plural.[16] Some UK university style guides recommend using data for both singular and plural use[17] and some recommend treating it only as a singular in connection with computers.[18] The IEEE Computer Society allows usage of data as either a mass noun or plural based on author preference,[19] while IEEE in the editorial style manual indicates to always use the plural form.[20] Some professional organizations and style guides[21] require that authors treat data as a plural noun. For example, the Air Force Flight Test Center specifically states that the word data is always plural, never singular.[22]