If you use AI-generated content in your assignments, you may need to cite the tool just like you would cite a book, article, or website.
You should cite AI when you:
You don't need to cite AI if you:
Some citation styles have begun to develop guidelines for citing ChatGPT and other generative AI. As of August 2023, only APA, Chicago, and MLA have posted guidance about citing generative AI. Guidelines may change and new citation styles may be added, so check back frequently for updates, and consult resources specific to the citation style you are using. If the style you are using does not have relevant guidelines yet, you may consider using the following formats:
Author of Model. (year of version used). Model (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. source
OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat
McAdoo, T. (2024, February 23). How to cite ChatGPT. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/how-to-cite-chatgpt
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 general URL for the tool.1
Works Cited:
Kiernan, L. (2023, April 12). How do I cite Generative AI in MLA style?. MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/citing-generative-ai/
While the green light in The Great Gatsby might be said to chiefly symbolize four main things: optimism, the unattainability of the American dream, greed, and covetousness (“Describe the symbolism”), arguably the most important—the one that ties all four themes together—is greed.
“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.
When asked to describe the symbolism of the green light in The Great Gatsby, ChatGPT provided a summary about optimism, the unattainability of the American dream, greed, and covetousness. However, when further prompted to cite the source on which that summary was based, it noted that it lacked “the ability to conduct research or cite sources independently” but that it could “provide a list of scholarly sources related to the symbolism of the green light in The Great Gatsby” (“In 200 words”).
“In 200 words, describe the symbolism of the green light in The Great Gatsby” follow-up prompt to list sources. ChatGPT, 13 Feb. version, OpenAI, 9 Mar. 2023, chat.openai.com/chat.
Use a description of the prompt, followed by the AI tool, version, and date created:
If you ask a generative AI tool to create a work, like a poem, how you cite it will depend on whether you assign a title to it.
If you ask ChatGPT to write a villanelle titled “The Sunflower” that—you guessed it!—describes a sunflower and then quote it in your text. Your works-cited-list entry might look like this:
“The Sunflower” villanelle about a sunflower. ChatGPT, 13 Feb. version, OpenAI, 8 Mar. 2023, chat.openai.com/chat.
If you did not title the work, incorporate part of or all of the first line into the description of the work in the Title of Source element:
“Upon the shore . . .” Shakespearean sonnet about seeing the ocean. ChatGPT, 13 Feb. version, OpenAI, 8 Mar. 2023, chat.openai.com/chat.
You should also take care to vet the secondary sources cited by a generative AI tool—with the caveat that AI tools do not always cite sources or, when they do, do not always indicate precisely what a given source has contributed. If you cite an AI summary that includes sources and do not go on to consult those sources yourself, we recommend that you acknowledge secondary sources in your work.
For example, let’s say that you ask Bing AI to explain the concept of the political unconscious, citing sources, and it provides the following answer:
Let’s say that you then decide to quote from the final sentence. You need to click through to the source listed in the note in order to get more information than just a URL for the source. There, you will read the following:
Now, you can treat Oxford Reference as your source since Bing AI was merely a research conduit to the source. If for some reason you want to treat a source cited in a generative AI tool as an indirect source–and you know it is, in fact, the source for the information provided by the AI, follow the guidance in section 6.77 of the MLA Handbook.
You do need to credit ChatGPT and similar tools whenever you use the text that they generate in your own work. But for most types of writing, you can simply acknowledge the AI tool in your text (e.g., “The following recipe for pizza dough was generated by ChatGPT”).
Used for a student paper or for a research article—a numbered footnote or endnote might look like this:
1. Text generated by ChatGPT, OpenAI, March 7, 2023, https://chat.openai.com/chat.
ChatGPT stands in as “author” of the content, and OpenAI (the company that developed ChatGPT) is the publisher or sponsor, followed by the date the text was generated. After that, the URL tells us where the ChatGPT tool may be found, but because readers can’t necessarily get to the cited content (see below), that URL isn’t an essential element of the citation.
If the prompt hasn’t been included in the text, it can be included in the note:
1. ChatGPT, response to “Explain how to make pizza dough from common household ingredients,” OpenAI, March 7, 2023.
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”). But you don’t need to say, for example, that you’ve applied smart quotes or adjusted the font; changes like those can be imposed silently
If you’re using author-date instead of notes, any information not in the text would be placed in a parenthetical text reference. For example, “(ChatGPT, March 7, 2023).”
But don’t cite ChatGPT in a bibliography or reference list unless you provide a publicly available link (e.g., via a browser extension like ShareGPT or A.I. Archives).
“The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition.” The Chicago Manual of Style Online. https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Documentation/faq0422.html.
Publishers are taking various approaches related to the use of generative AI. If you are writing for publication, check the publisher's information for authors. As of August 2023, several publishers have provided guidance on how AI tools should be considered in their publications: