When incorporating AI-generated text or images into your work, it is essential to acknowledge your source. Doing so upholds academic integrity, which centers on honesty, responsibility, and giving proper credit to sources just as one would cite textbooks, journal articles, or images created by a human author, artist, or photographer. Academic integrity extends beyond avoiding plagiarism, emphasizing ethical research practices, fairness, and maintaining academic standards for long-term success.

If your instructor permits the use of AI in an assignment, you must provide a citation each time AI-generated content appears. AI usage should only be used if explicitly allowed by your instructor; if you are uncertain, consult with them before including AI-generated material in your work.

Various citation style guides now offer official or provisional recommendations for referencing AI-generated material. You can follow the suggested guidelines below to ensure proper citation.

It is essential to acknowledge generative AI’s contributions when utilizing these tools in your work. This applies not only to direct quotes and paraphrased content but also to tasks such as editing, translation, idea generation, and data processing.
Avoid relying on sources cited by AI tools unless you have personally verified them. There are two key reasons for this: AI-generated citations may be fabricated, and even when they reference real sources, the cited information might be inaccurate or decontextualized.
It is important to check citation guidelines frequently since guidelines are still evolving. If you are unsure of the proper citation format, consider including a note in your work explaining how you used the AI tool.
Citations serve two main purposes: to give credit to the original creator and enable others to locate the sources you referenced. Keeping these principles in mind can guide your decisions on properly acknowledging AI-generated content.

Additional Considerations:

Keep in mind: One purpose of citation is to allow readers to locate and review the cited source, but AI outputs are dynamic, constantly updated, and re-trained using new data. Therefore, the same prompt may produce different results over time. This instability complicates citation, but acknowledging AI use remains essential for transparency.
In most cases, it is best to cite the original sources of any information or ideas generated by AI, much like how instructors often treat Wikipedia: It can be useful for background or locating sources, but it is not itself a reliable academic reference. That said, disclosing your use of AI, especially in cases where it assisted with drafting, editing, translating, or brainstorming, is important for academic honesty. In some contexts, direct citation of AI output may be appropriate, and MLA, APA, and Chicago provide evolving frameworks for such cases.
There may be times when you need to explain how you used AI rather than simply citing it. This could take the form of a note in your paper or project (e.g., “ChatGPT was used to generate possible titles and refine sentence structure” or “ChatGPT was used to edit paragraphs for clarity”). Because few style guides currently offer standardized templates for this kind of disclosure, instructors and institutions may provide their own requirements. Until then, a brief explanatory statement, along with standard citations where relevant, best supports academic transparency.

Citation Styles

There are three main citation styles: APA, MLA, and Chicago. You can choose which style to use depending on your discipline and institutional requirements. See below for examples for each:

MLA Generative AI Citation Guide

AI-generated materials are viewed as a source with no human author

If possible, include a shareable link to the prompt script rather than a general URL.

Format:
"Description of chat" prompt. Name of AI tool, version of AI tool, Company, Date of chat, URL.

Example:

"Examples of harm reduction initiatives" prompt. ChatGPT, 23 Mar. version, OpenAI, 4 Mar. 2023, http://chat.openai.com/chat .

In-Text Citation Example:

("Examples of harm reduction")

Chicago Generative AI Citation Guide

Chicago style treats the AI tool as the author of the generated material.

Include a shareable link to the prompt script instead of the basic URL, if possible.

A numbered footnote or endnote might look like this:

Format:
Author, Title, Publisher, Date, URL for the tool.

Example (if information about the prompt has been included within the text of your paper):

Text generated by ChatGPT, OpenAI, February 20, 2024, https://chat.openai.com/chat .

Example (including information about the prompt):

ChatGPT, response to "Translation into German," OpenAI, February 20, 2024, https://chat.openai.com/chat .

APA Generative AI Citation Guide

APA style views the creator of the AI tool as the author of the materials.

Include a shareable link to the prompt script instead of the basic URL, if possible.

Format:

Author. (Date). AI Tool (Version) [type]. URL

Example:

In-text citation

When prompted with “Is the left brain right brain divide real or a metaphor?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that although the two brain hemispheres are somewhat specialized, “the notation that people can be characterized as ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained’ is considered to be an oversimplification and a popular myth” (OpenAI, 2023).

Reference

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

Example (AI-generated image):