Skip to Main Content
LRC

Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI Ethics and Citation

Ethical and Evaluative Use

Should You Use Artificial Intelligence to Write Your College Essays?

How to Cite AI

If you choose to use generative AI tools for course assignments, you should give special attention to how you acknowledge and cite the output of those tools within your work. You should always check with your instructor before using AI for any coursework. 

With all things related to AI, the standards for citing AI-generated content are likely to change over the next few years. For now, some of the major style guides (i.e., MLA and APA) have released some basic guidelines. Individual publishers may have their own approach to citing AI-generated content. 

Here are some basic ideas that apply to citing AI generated content, no matter which citation style you're using:

  • Do cite or acknowledge the outputs of generative AI tools when you use them in your work. This includes direct quotations and paraphrasing, as well as using it for editing, translating, idea generation, data processing, and etc. 
  • Do not use sources that are cited by AI tools without checking out those sources yourself. There are two different reasons for this:
    • Generative AI tools can create fake citations.
    • These tools may cite a real piece of writing, but the cited content may be inaccurate. 

  • Be flexible in your approach to citing AI-generated content. Emerging guidelines will always lag behind the current state of technology, and the way that technology is applied. If you are unsure of how to cite something, include a note in your text that describes how you used a certain AI tool. 

  • When in doubt, remember that we cite sources for two primary purposes: First, to give credit to the author/creator. Second, to help others locate the sources you used in your research. Use these two concepts to help make decisions while using AI-generated content. 

Citation References

When you cite AI-generated content using APA, you should treat that content as the output of an algorithm, with the author of the content being the company or organization that created the model. For example, when citing ChatGPT, the author would be OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT. 

Guidelines:

  • When you reference this content directly in your text, you should include an in-text citation, and an associated entry in your reference list. 
  • If you use AI tools for your research, you should describe what you use in your introduction and include the prompts that you used.
  • When referencing shorter passages of text, you can include that text directly in your paper.
  • Include an appendix or link to an online supplement that includes the full text of long responses from a generative AI tool.

Format:

Author. (Date). Name of tool (Version of tool) [Large language model]. URL

Example:

OpenAI. (2024). ChatGPT (July 17 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

In-Text Citation Example: 

(OpenAI, 2024)

MLA style is generally more flexible than APA, so while it provides specific examples for citing commonly used AI tools, it encourages writers to adapt those guidelines to fit the situation. 

Guidelines:

  • Cite the AI tool when you incorporate its output into your work. This includes direct quotations, images, and data, as well as paraphrased content.
  • If you use an AI tool for some other purpose, such as translating, editing, or generating an outline, include a note about this somewhere in your paper.
  • The MLA views AI-generated content as a source with no author, so you'll use the title of the source in your in-text citations, and in your reference list. The title you choose should be a brief description of the AI-generated content, such as an abbreviated version of the prompt you used. 
  • If you create a shareable link to the chat transcript, include that instead of the tool's 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, 17 Jul. 2024, chat.openai.com/chat.

In-Text Citation Example:

("Examples of harm reduction")

AI and Copyright Policies

Content produced by Artificial Intelligence cannot be granted copyright protection. As of August 2023, the US Copyright Office stipulates that copyrighted material must have a human author, and prompting an AI tool to create content does not count as human authorship. Currently, the Copyright Office is working on a report that will reexamine copyright law in relation to AI, so there is a possibility that this policy may change in the future. 

Footer