Over the last decade, citation of archived scientific data have been the focus of intense debate. However, much of the work on data citation has centered around proposing specific formats for references. In the meantime, scientists have been creating and citing archived data sets, and we thus far lack a deep body of evidence to map the emerging best practices onto actual usage of data references. This study sketches out some of those connections by examining references to data from the Dryad Digital Repository as appearing in articles collected in PMC Europe. I collected examples of references that appear in works cited lists and intratextually, and analyzed the occurrence of references over time, both by themselves and in conjunction with several other factors. This paper offers preliminary insights into current data citation practices, which hopefully can be used to help inform the discussion surrounding data citation.