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Citation Styles and Management Tools Guide

Overview of citations and guides to commonly used citation styles.

Citing AI-Generated Material

Confirm with your instructor if the use of ChatGPT or other generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools is allowed for your assignment. Your instructor may also have a specific way they would like you to cite AI content.

When an assignment allows AI tools, you must cite any AI-generated material that informed you work. This includes if you use an AI tool to help write or structure your paper, even if you do not quote or paraphrase its content. You must acknowledge your use of the AI tool to provide transparency to your reader. Using AI to generate content without proper attribution can qualify as academic dishonesty.

ACE your usage of AI by:

  • Acknowledging your use of an AI tool in your research or assignment
  • Citing the tool in your Works Cited
  • Evaluating the information given to you by the AI tool, verifying its sources and checking for errors

If possible, you should cite the original sources the AI tool pulled its information from, instead of the tool itself.

Information about using and referencing ChatGPT and other generative AI tools is still being developed and will continue to be updated.

ACE acronym developed by STEM Librarian Renée Walsh

Suggestions from Style Guides

It is recommended to base the citation for generative AI content on the reference style for personal communication or correspondence; content from generative AI is a nonrecoverable source as it can't always be retrieved or linked.

ChatGPT and generative AI tools are not knowledge creation tools: they are language generation tools. They are truth-ambivalent, biased, and can "hallucinate," producing incorrect information. It is your responsibility to always verify information obtained from an AI tool before including it in your work.

APA style recommends describing how the tool was used in the Method section or another comparable section. Provide the prompt used and then any portion of the relevant text that was generated in response. It is particularly important to document the exact text created, because ChatGPT will generate a unique response in each chat session, even if given the same prompt. The full text of long responses from ChatGPT may be placed in an appendix of the paper or in online supplemental materials so readers have access to the exact text that was generated. Credit the author of the algorithm (e.g., OpenAI) with a reference list entry and the corresponding in-text citation.

Sample Citation Format:

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

MLA style recommends citing a generative AI tool whenever you paraphrase, quote, or incorporate into your own work any content (whether text, image, data, or other) that was created by it; acknowledging all functional uses of the tool (like editing prose or translating words) in a note, the text, or another suitable location; and vetting the secondary sources it cites. 

Sample Citation Format:

“Describe the symbolism of the green light in the book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald” prompt. ChatGPT, 13 Feb. version, OpenAI, 8 Mar. 2023, chat.openai.com/chat.

The Chicago Manual of Style states to credit ChatGPT when you reproduce its words within your own work, but that information should be put in the text or in a note—not in a bibliography or reference list. Other AI-generated text can be cited similarly. If you’ve edited the AI-generated text, you should say so in the text or at the end of the note (e.g., “edited for style and content”). Include the prompt you used in the text of your work or in the note.

Sample Notes Format:

  1. Text generated by ChatGPT, March 7, 2023, OpenAI, https://chat.openai.com/chat.
  2. ChatGPT, response to “Explain how to make pizza dough from common household ingredients,” March 7, 2023, OpenAI.

Citation Support from AI Tools

Generative AI tools powered by large language models are rapidly proliferating and developing. Any guidance about using these tools to support citation formatting, style transformation, or in-text citation review are current to the last date of editing on this page.

Can AI-powered chatbots check the formatting of my citations?

Yes, however, there are two important limitations:

  1. A chatbot will only offer feedback on the specific formatting guideline it is prompted for. Generic prompts to check your works cited may miss crucial errors. More specific prompts, such as checking your works cited for proper use of italics according to a particular style type, will produce higher quality results.
  2. A chatbot will only offer feedback according to the most current edition of a style guide and the most popular style types. If your assignment requires a prior edition (i.e., MLA 8 instead of MLA 9) or a less common citation style (i.e., ASA), you will need to provide the chatbot with reinforcing documentation to guide its feedback. Attaching a style guide text along with the works cited document you wish to check will produce a higher quality output in these cases.

Can AI-powered chatbots transform my citations from one style type to another?

Yes; however, the same two limitations apply in this use case as above. A quality output in the new citation style requires a careful eye for mistakes and very specific prompting. If you are translating into a less common citation style, you will need to provide the chatbot with reinforcing documentation to guide its feedback.

Can AI-powered chatbots check the formatting of my in-text citations?

Not reliably. To date, chatbots will provide general guidance on in-text citation, but when asked for specific revision assistance, they will garble the page reference or in some cases fabricate errors. This work is still best done by dedicated writing assistance tools, though those may not be free to use and still need human verification.