Office for Faculty Excellence

Citing ChatGPT and Other Generative AI

Citing AI-Produced Content Responsibly*

We are still learning how to ethically use and cite generative AI resources. As such, err on the side of transparency. Here are some ideas for citing generative AI responsibly:

  • For tools that allow to use a link to share and retrieve individual chats, such as ChatGPT, include the link to the relevant chat with the citation.
  • Save a transcript of your chat. Make it available to or retrievable by your reader, possibly by including it as an appendix to your work or as an online supplement.
  • Describe the prompt that generated the specific Gen AI response.
    Include the date when the response was generated or the date of access. This is important as these tools will update regularly.
  • Acknowledge how you used the tool. You can do this even if you only use generative AI to plan your paper or generate ideas and don’t include any of its generated content.

*This section of is a derivative of AI, ChatGPT, and the Library Libguide by Amy Scheelke for Salt Lake Community College, which is licensed CC BY-NC 4.0

APA 7th issued guidance in April 2023.

In-text

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

MLA was the first style team to provide official guidance. Examples:

Works Cited entry

“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.

In-text: (“Describe the symbolism”)

Works Cited entry

“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.

In-text: (“In 200 words”)

  • Chicago 17th
    • 1Originator of the communication, medium, Day Month, Year.
    • 1 OpenAI’s ChatGPT AI language model, response to question from author, 7 February, 2023.