is it 'data is' or 'data are'?

Answer 1

Well !!! this is Grammar

It depends on your sentence

for example,

This article describes where saved games, tattoos, settings, and other data are located for Microsoft Fable.
http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;en-us;914345 Microsoft website

Do not panic if your data is hidden by virus writers demanding a ransom.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5038330.stm BBC

Answer 2

I googled "data is" and "data are" and I found out that "data is" resulted in about 171,000,000 pages while "data are" about 84,100,000 pages.
http://www.google.com.sg/search?q=%22data+is%22&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official
http://www.google.com.sg/search?q=%22data+are%22&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official

however, the correct linguistic term is supposed to be "data are" since "data" is a plural form of "datum" (as pointed out by others).

The word "Data" is often said to be a mass noun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_noun ), which would make "data is" become correct. The use of this seemed to have not been formalized yet (although it's already used widely), so you'd better stick with "data are" and "datum is"

Answer 3

Although DATA refers to a collection of things. It is used with both 'IS' and 'ARE'.
There are many other examples like this in Englilsh grammer.
like

= The women is a freak
= Women are freak.

(Girls dont take it seriously, it was only a example)

So you see we can use both IS and ARE with data.

Answer 4

To be technically and gramatically correct..its data ARE and datum IS. However, in normal parlance, we say data IS as well as ARE...

Answer 5

its data is .. .as data is taken usually as a collection of information... even if there is a singular piece of information

Answer 6

I sm not perfect in English but I think it is data is cuz we say information is :)

Answer 7

I think it's date are...

Somewhere in the recesses of my brain I remember hearing that the singular of data is 'datum.'

Answer 8

the word 'data' refers to more than one item. the word 'datum' refers to a single item. so you should say 'data are', not 'data is'

Answer 9

data IS coz its a collective noun like "The class is bad"

Answer 10

I think it's "data is".