Student Guide to Generative AI

Citing Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools

• You should always review your course syllabus for guidelines on using AI in your classes. You may need to disclose your use of AI for any part of your writing or research process. 

• You should always refer to the detailed guidelines from the style you are using in your paper or project. 

Citation Examples from Major Style Guides: 

These are merely brief examples, you should go to the source for each style to read in-depth instructions for how to cite any material created by generative AI in your writing.

APA

Source: Citing Generative AI in APA Style (Updated, September, 2025)

Quoting AI Tools in APA Style

"Most AI chat tools, including ChatGPT, now include a sharing option that typically provides users with a unique URL and a title for each chat. This makes creating an APA Style reference for a specific chat a simple matter of following the author–date–title–source format used in most APA Style references."

----------------------------------------------------------------

Example: In-text + Reference

"We asked four AI tools for a list of grammar concepts that students should know by the end of high school. Our prompt was “I’d like a list of grammar topics that a student should understand by the time they graduate from high school.” In this scenario, we want to include those chats as references in a paper."

Reference

OpenAI. (2025, August 21). High school grammar concepts [Generative AI chat]. ChatGPT. https://chatgpt.com/share/68a77b60-0ee4-800c-9acc-cd3fd573c311

Parenthetical (In-text) Citation:  (OpenAI, 2025)

Example: Multiple Citations 

If you are citing multiple times from an AI tool, the in-text citation will look the same, (OpenAI, 2025). In order to differentiate the citations, follow existing APA guidance on sources with the same name and same year by adding an a, b, c, etc to each citation. 

In-text

(OpenAI, 2023a)

MLA

Source: How do I cite generative AI in MLA style? (Updated, September, 2025)

To acknowledge more substantive uses of AI in your work that go beyond citation, see their post on acknowledging AI and the limits of citation. 

The MLA Style Center gives this general guidance for using technologies like ChatGPT:

• Cite 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.
• Acknowledge all functional uses of the tool (like editing your prose or translating words) in a note, your text, or another suitable location.
• Take care to vet the secondary sources it cites.

Works Cited:

• When creating a reference in MLA style, include the prompt used to generate the response. 

• Name the specific AI model or model version as specifically as possible. For instance, the examples in this post were developed using the GPT-4o model of ChatGPT.

• Give the stable, shareable URL for accessing the generated content (e.g., text, an image, etc.). For example, tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E allow you to share a link by clicking the Share link at the top of the chat conversation. If the tool you are using doesn’t provide a stable, shareable URL, provide the general URL for the tool.

MLA format: 

“Text of prompt” prompt. ChatGPT, version, OpenAI, Day Month Year, chat.openai.com.

MLA Works Cited entry: 

“Describe the theme of nature in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park” prompt. ChatGPT, model GPT-4o, OpenAI, 23 Sept. 2024,  chatgpt.com/share/66f1b0a0-d704-8000-be9a-85f53c850607.

MLA in-text citation:

(“Describe the theme”)

Chicago

Source: Recommendations on how to cite AI-generated content (Updated 2023)

"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”). If you need a more formal citation—for example, for a student paper or for a research article—a numbered footnote or endnote might look like this:"

Example:

1. Text generated by ChatGPT, March 31, 2023, OpenAI, https://chat.openai.com.
 

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.

AMA

The AMA Manual of Style's section Acknowledging Support, Assistance, and Contributions of Those Who Are Not Authors recommends noting the use of AI tools in the Acknowledgements or Methods section of your paper, depending on what you used the tool for.

"Authors should report the use of artificial intelligence, language models, machine learning, or similar technologies to create content or assist with writing or editing of manuscripts in the Acknowledgment section or the Methods section if this is part of formal research design or methods.¹¹ This should include a description of the content that was created or edited and the name of the language model or tool, version and extension numbers, and manufacturer. (Note: this does not include basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, references, etc.)"

Formatting Citations in AMA Style

The AMA Manual of Style includes guidance on citing AI tools in the section on software. "In research articles, provide the brand name in parentheses along with the version or extension number, manufacturer or owner, and date(s) used."

Example in-text citation:

On June 12, 2023, the original full text of the question was put into a fresh chatbot session (ChatGPT, model GPT-4, OpenAI) and the generated responses were saved.

Source: https://libguides.stcc.edu/c.php?g=1341872&p=9897575#s-lg-box-31268636

IEEE

According to the "Guidelines for Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Generated Text" (based on IEEE Author Center Submission Guidelines), the use of content generated by artificial intelligence (AI) (including but not limited to text, figures, images, and code) shall be disclosed in an acknowledgments section. The AI system used shall be identified, and specific sections of the document that use AI-generated content shall be identified and accompanied by a brief explanation regarding the level at which the AI system was used to generate the content. The use of AI systems for editing and grammar enhancement should be disclosed as noted above.

IEEE has not published an official guideline on citing AI-generated content yet. The IEEE Author Center recommends consulting the Chicago Manual of Style for guidance for any usage not included in the IEEE Editorial Style Manual. The Chicago Manual of Style has recommendations on how to cite AI-generated content.