Skip to Main Content

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 content generated by AI, you should create a reference list entry and an in-text citation to properly acknowledge this use. More details regarding the APA's guidance on this topic can be found in the APA Style post Citing Generative AI in APA Style: Part 1 -- Reference Formats.

If the AI tool that you used provides a unique URL and title for your chat, 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.
  • Date: List the date on which the chat occurred, with the year first, followed by a comma and then the month and date of the chat.
  • Title: List the title of the chat in italics, capitalizing only the first letter of the first word of the title, along with any proper nouns or initialisms. If possible, edit the title within the AI tool so that it will be helpful for your reader. Add a brief description in regular font between square brackets after the title.
  • Source: List the name of the tool that you used. If you know the specific model of the tool (e.g., ChatGPT-5), provide it; if not, it is acceptable to provide just the tool's name (e.g., ChatGPT).
  • URL: List the URL for your chat.

See example below.

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

In-text citation:

(OpenAI, 2025)

If the AI tool that you used does not provide a unique URL and title for your chat, 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. If the tool doesn't indicate its date, you can try asking the tool to provide that information. If you are still unable to obtain a date, use the copyright year provided on the tool's website or app.
  • Title: List the name of the AI tool that you used, putting the name in italics. If you know the specific model of the tool (e.g., ChatGPT-5), provide it; if not, it is acceptable to provide just the tool's name (e.g., ChatGPT). Add a brief description in regular font between square brackets after the title. 
  • 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 examples below.

Ex Libris. (2024). Research Assistant [Retrieval augmented generation]. https://usmai-umgc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/researchAssistant?vid=01USMAI_UMGC:ONESEARCH

Microsoft. (2025). Copilot [Large language model]. https://copilot.microsoft.com

In-text citation:

(Ex Libris, 2024)

(Microsoft, 2025)

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? (Updated and Revised)

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 (e.g., model GPT-4o).
  • 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 on which 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. Follow MLA URL formatting rules when providing the URL.

See example below.

"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.

In-text citation:

("Describe the theme")

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.