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Citation and Reference Management: Citing Generative AI

Information about citation and citation management

Citing Generative AI

How to be an honest academic citizen when it comes to generative AI

  • Check your syllabus—are you explicitly allowed to use a generative AI tool? If not, don't.
  • Describe how you used generative AI and what you did: did you prompt it to find sources, conduct a literature review, translate a text for you, create code, or generate an outline for an essay? You could include this description in the text of your work or in an appendix, but your professor may have a preference.
  • Include what you asked: submit your prompts and the tools responses as an appendix to your assignment.
  • Cite your tool if you are quoting, paraphrasing, or using creative works generated by it. We've included some guidance from the major style guides below.

Citation Styles and Generative AI

"Do I need to cite ChatGPT, Bard, Midjourney, Dall-E, etc.?"

 

(First check your syllabus to confirm that you're allowed to use these tools in your course.)

If you are, the answer is yes, you do need to cite them — the question is how. And like many things citation-related, the answer is "it depends." It might take a while for citation generators and citation management tools to catch up to evolutions in generative AI, but the various styles are already producing (and frequently updating) guidance. If the citation style you are using does not have official guidance on how to cite generative AI, you can think of the prompt-and-answer sequence as personal correspondence or an interview and use the style guide's instructions for that format instead. In general, your references should provide clear and accurate information for each source, identify where they have been used in your work, and indicate if and when you have used a tool for ideation or planning, even if the content it produces doesn't end up in what you write.

APA Style

The APA Style team has written a post on how to cite Chat GPT (last updated February 2024). The following is adapted from that post:

Author

The author of the model (e.g., OpenAI)

Date

The date is the year of the version you used. The version number provides the specific date information a reader might need.

Title

The name of the model (e.g. “ChatGPT,”) is the title and is italicized in your reference.

The version number is included after the title in parentheses. You use the version number in the format the author or publisher provides, which may be a numbering system (e.g., Version 2.0) or other methods.

Bracketed text is used in references for additional descriptions when they are needed to help a reader understand what’s being cited. In the case of a reference for a generative AI tool, the descriptor should be “Large language model” or however else the publisher describes the model. 

Source

Use the direct URL of your ChatGPT conversation. For other models, use the URL that links as directly as possible to the source (i.e., the page where you can access the conversation, or if not, then the model, rather than the publisher’s homepage).


MLA Style

The MLA Style Center provides extensive examples of how to cite generative AI tools used to paraphrase text, quote text, create visual works, quote creative textual work, or cite secondary sources used by the tool. The guide to using their MLA template below is taken from their Citing Generative AI page:

Author

We do not recommend treating the AI tool as an author. This recommendation follows the policies developed by various publishers, including the MLA’s journal PMLA

Title of Source

Describe what was generated by the AI tool. This may involve including information about the prompt in the Title of Source element if you have not done so in the text. 

Title of Container

Use the Title of Container element to name the AI tool (e.g., ChatGPT).

Version

Name the version of the AI tool as specifically as possible. For example, the examples in this post were developed using ChatGPT 3.5, which assigns a specific date to the version, so the Version element shows this version date.

Publisher

Name the company that made the tool.

Date

Give the date the content was generated.

Location

Give the URL for the chat (or, if there is no publicly available URL for the chat, give the general URL for the tool). 


Chicago Style

The Chicago Manual of Style Style Q & A provides examples of how to cite content developed by AI and recommends using footnotes or endnotes to indicate what and how generative AI tools were used. However, it suggests that writers should not include ChatGPT or similar tools in a bibliography or reference list unless they can provide a reliable link to the chat itself that anyone can access (many of those tools now do provide such a link). The recommendations below come from the Q&A:

Use a superscript number (like this: ¹) in the text at the place where you are indicating that you are citing from a source.

Footnote - Prompt within the text

Text generated by Program, Month Day, Year used, Company, https://chat.openai.com/chat.

Example: The following information was collected by ChatGPT using the prompt Do all caterpillars turn into butterflies?: "While the majority of caterpillars turn into butterflies, there is an exception - moths. The metamorphosis process can result in either a butterfly or a moth, depending on the caterpillar species."¹

1. Text generated by ChatGPT, May 18, 2023, OpenAI, https://chat.openai.com/chat.

Footnote - No prompt within the text

Program, response to “prompt,” Month Day, Year used, Company.

Example: "Not all Canadian Geese participate in a seasonal migration pattern. Those located within urban locations or in a region with favorable conditions year round, will become permanent residents of the region. Those who do migrate will follow flyway routes - well-established migration routes that connect their breeding grounds in the North and their wintering locations in the South."²

2. ChatGPT, response to “Explain the migration pattern of Canadian Geese,” May 18, 2023, OpenAI.


IEEE

As of July 2024, IEEE had not released any official guidance on citing generative AI-produced content but they have been clear that it is crucial to be transparent about the use of A.I.. We recommend following the guidance for private communication and unpublished material (see page 20 of the IEEE Reference Style Guide for Authors). You do not need to include an entry in the reference list. 

 

Stop and Check

Stop and Check!

Remember that generative AI models sometimes produce incorrect or biased information, including hallucinated citations. Be sure to check the accuracy of AI-produced content before relying on it to build an argument or create a review.