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Artificial Intelligence

This guide is created for the UMGC community, with resources and information about Artificial Intelligence that can help students, faculty, and the greater community.

Citing AI

Confirm with your professor whether AI tools like ChatGPT are allowed for use within your assignments and course work before use.

If you're allowed to use AI tools for your course work, note that guidance is still evolving with regard to whether AI tools should be treated as authors and how content generated by such tools should be cited. We will attempt to keep this page updated with the latest guidance about how to cite content generated by AI tools.

Some articles about citations and AI tools are linked below. 

AI and Hallucinations

Warning! If you tell ChatGPT and other AI apps to write something on a topic and include citations, AI will often make up citations (sometimes called hallucinated citations) for nonexistent articles.

Alert! Hallucinated citations have been showing up in Google Scholar. If you use Google Scholar for research, please read this guide.

Here are ways to spot a citation that AI made up out of thin air:

  • author names may be super common, like Smith and Brown
  • article title is a mishmash of words from your prompt
  • DOI doesn't work or links to a completely different (and real) article
  • made-up citations will, however, often use the name of a real author or a real journal, even though the article supposedly cited does not exist

Pro tip: Use Google to check a ChatGPT-generated citation. If you Google almost any real citation, you will quickly find evidence of the article online--you will see the article listed on the journal website, for example, or in the reference list of another article. By Googling a real citation, you can usually confirm that the article exists. That is not the case with ChatGPT hallucinatory citations. Try Googling one: copy and paste it in its entirety into Google, or try Googling the author along with a phrase from the title (put the title phrase inside quotation marks, so Google searches it as an exact phrase). If you search Google for an article based on an unreal citation, you usually can quickly determine that the article itself doesn't exist.

So please beware: ChatGPT and other AI can create citations that are worse than useless, because they're deceptive. The citations look real, but no actual, published article is connected to them.

For more information on AI and hallucinations see Don't be a victim of AI hallucinations.

Citing AI in APA Style

At this time, the APA says that when you use AI-generated text, you should create a reference list entry and in-text citation to properly acknowledge the tool that you used. More details regarding the APA’s guidance on this topic can be found in the APA Style post How to Cite ChatGPT.

Your reference list entry should consist of the following elements:

  • Author: List the creator of the tool that you used. For example, OpenAI is the creator of ChatGPT.
  • Year: List the year for the version of the tool that you used.
  • Title: List the name of the AI tool that you used, putting the name in italics. The version number for the tool should go in parentheses after the title, and the version information should be in regular font. Provide the version information in the format shown on the tool. Put any additional information needed to describe the tool in square brackets.
  • Source: List the tool’s publisher. If the tool’s publisher is the same as the author, do not list the name a second time.
  • URL: List the URL of the tool.

See example below.

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

In-text citation:

(OpenAI, 2023)

Citing AI in MLA Style

At this time, the MLA says that you should “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.” More details about the MLA’s guidance can be found on the MLA Style Center post How do I cite generative AI in MLA style?

Your Works Cited list entry should consist of the following elements:

  • Author: The MLA currently says that they “do not recommend treating the AI tool as an author,” so the first element of your Works Cited list entry should be the source’s title.
  • Title of Source: Describe what the AI tool generated. Include information about the prompt that you entered into the tool if you didn’t do so in the body of your paper.
  • Title of Container: List the name of the tool that you used (e.g., ChatGPT).
  • Version: List as specifically as possible the version of the tool that you used. ChatGPT currently provides dates for versions, for example, so a Works Cited entry for ChatGPT should list the date of the version used.
  • Publisher: List the name of the company that made the tool that you used. For example, OpenAI is the creator of ChatGPT.
  • Date: List the date that you used the tool to generate content, following MLA date formatting rules.
  • Location: If the tool that you used provides a unique URL that could be used to retrieve the content that you generated, include that URL; if not, provide the URL of the tool’s home page, following MLA URL formatting rules.

See example below.

“Describe the use of irony in Joseph Heller’s book Catch-22” prompt. ChatGPT, 13 Feb. version, OpenAI, 8 Mar. 2023, chat.openai.com/chat.

In-text citation:

(“Describe the use of irony”)

Citing AI in Chicago Style

The editors of the Chicago Manual of Style have posted a Q&A about how to cite content generated by AI. Their most recent guidance says that “you must credit ChatGPT when you reproduce its words within your own work, but unless you include a publicly available URL, that information should be put in the text or in a note — not in a bibliography or reference list. Other AI-generated text can be cited similarly.”

See examples below.

Footnote template:

1. Text generated by [Tool Used], Tool Publisher, date of generation, URL.

Example:

1. Text generated by ChatGPT, OpenAI, March 7, 2023, https://chat.openai.com/chat.

If the prompt that you entered into ChatGPT wasn’t included in the body of your paper, it can be included in a note.

Example:

1. ChatGPT, response to “Describe the parts of the human brain and their functions,” OpenAI, March 7, 2023.

Citing AI in IEEE Style

The IEEE has not yet provided guidance about how to cite generative AI within this specific style. 

However, some libraries in North America and Australia have offered suggestions on how to cite generative AI content that follow the stylistic guidelines of IEEE.