Skip to Main Content
RESEARCH GUIDES ACC Home Page

Generative AI: Citing AI Sources, & Academic Honesty

How to Cite AI by Citation Style

Each of Library Service's Citation Style Guides now includes guidance and examples for citing generative AI sources. Use these guides to format bibliographic and in-text generative AI citations.

 

Generative AI: Detecting and Preventing Plagiarism

Advice about preventing AI-based cheating on writing assignments. 

AI detection tools. 

Generative AI and Writing Assignment Design

Articles offering ideas, tips, and examples of writing assignments designed to leverage the opportunities and mitigate the risks presented by generative AI.  

Cite it Correctly

Building blocks-MLA

  • Author: Do not treat the AI as an author; MLA is reserving that for human authors. Omit the author section of the citation.
  • Title of source: Describe what was generated by the AI tool. If you have not included information about the prompt in the text of your essay, you need to do that here.
  • Title of container: The name of the AI tool. 
  • Version: Name the version of the AI tool as specifically as possible. 
  • Date: Include the date the content was generated. 
  • Location: Give the URL for the tool. If possible, give the URL for the specific content. (Note: the style guide post is slightly out of date; you can now send someone a URL of your ChatGPT conversation. This is the URL you should use in your citation.)

Format

"Prompt text" prompt. AI tool, version of tool, company that made the tool, date text was generated. URL. 

Examples

  • In-text citation: ("Describe the symbolism")
  • Bibliography: “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, https://chat.openai.com/share/dccb3610-1db9-4eed-88b1-cdb06f67982a.

Check out the MLA Style Guide for more information Links to an external site.


Building blocks-APA

  • Author: Use the creator of the AI as the author (e.g. OpenAI, Google, etc.)
  • Date: Include the date the content was generated. 
  • Title: Use the name of the AI tool (e.g. ChatGPT, Bard)
  • Version: Name the version of the AI tool as specifically as possible. 
  • Description: In brackets, clarify that this is a large language model, or another specific type of generative AI.
  • Location: Give the URL for the tool. If possible, give the URL for the specific content. (Note: the style guide post is slightly out of date; you can now send someone a URL of your ChatGPT conversation. This is the URL you should use in your citation.)

Format

Company that made the tool (date text was generated). AI tool (version of tool) [Large language model]. URL. 

Examples

  • In-text citation: (OpenAI, 2023)
  • Bibliography: OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/share/dccb3610-1db9-4eed-88b1-cdb06f67982aLinks to an external site.Links to an external site.

In Chicago, you'll cite generative AI differently depending on whether or not you included the prompt in the text of your paper. If you included it in your paper, you don't need to repeat it in the citation. 


Building blocks-Chicago

  • Author: Treat the AI as the author. If you're footnoting quoted text, say "Text generated by [the AI tool]."
  • Date: Include the date the content was generated. 
  • Publisher: Use the company that created the AI (e.g. OpenAI, Google)
  • Location: Give the URL for the tool. If possible, give the URL for the specific content.

Format

Prompt already included in the paper:

1. Text generated by [name of the AI tool], date, Company that made the tool, URL.

Prompt not yet included in the paper: 

1. [Name of the AI tool], response to "prompt," date text was generated, Company that made the tool, URL.

Examples

  • Prompt already included in the paper: 1. Text generated by ChatGPT, March 7, 2023, OpenAI, https://chat.openai.com/share/dccb3610-1db9-4eed-88b1-cdb06f67982aLinks to an external site..
  • Prompt not yet included in the paper: 1. ChatGPT, response to “Explain how to make pizza dough from common household ingredients,” March 7, 2023, OpenAI, https://chat.openai.com/share/dccb3610-1db9-4eed-88b1-cdb06f67982aLinks to an external site..

Creative Commons License

Created by the Unversity of Maryland

ChatGPT as a Research Tool

No, ChatGPT Can't Be Your New Research Assistant
The Chronicle of Higher Education

SPINNING A 'WEB OF LIES'

By  Maggie Hicks

AUGUST 23, 2023

Amy Chatfield, an information-services librarian for the Norris Medical Library at the University of Southern California, can hunt down and deliver to researchers just about any article, book, or journal, no matter how obscure the topic or far-flung the source.

So she was stumped when she couldn’t locate any of the 35 sources a researcher had asked her colleague to deliver.

Each source included an author, journal, date, and page numbers, and had seemingly legit titles such as “Loan-out corporations for entertainers and athletes: A closer look,” published in the Journal of Legal Tax Research.

Then she started noticing oddities about the sources...

AI & Information Literacy

Where does ChatGPT fit into the Framework for Information Literacy?

The possibilities and problems of AI in library instruction

Amy B. James and Ellen Hampton Filgo

Provides examples of teaching information literacy with ChatGPT, specific to each of the tenets of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy. Read the Full Text

"One compelling argument by Christopher Grobe in the Chronicle of Higher Education suggests that what generative AI can help us with is to “provide new starting points for some of the processes we routinely use to think.”5 We agree with Grobe’s argument that ChatGPT can give us a good starting point from which to work. The text generated by ChatGPT in the screenshot at the start of this article is an overly optimistic and idealized view of itself. We hope that in this article we can add the nuance that it lacks."


ACC Web Site || Library Web Site || GET HELP! || Search the Library
Contact Us • © Library Services, Austin Community College