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Artificial Intelligence: Citing

A resource guide to understanding and learning about generative AI

At JCU

According to the Academic Integrity section of the Academic Policies at John Cabot University in Rome, the unauthorized use of AI is considered academic dishonesty.

Please check with your course instructor first before using AI for any assignment or course-related activity. If you are allowed to use generative AI, please refer to their guidelines, and when in doubt, ask them first! In general, if you plan on using generative AI for any activity, please make sure to consider all the implications. 

ROBOT

Before using AI-generated content, consider the ROBOT test:

Reliability

Objective

Bias

Ownership

Type

Reliability
  • How reliable is the information available about the AI technology?
  • If it’s not produced by the party responsible for the AI, what are the author’s credentials? Bias?
  • If it is produced by the party responsible for the AI, how much information are they making available? 
    • Is information only partially available due to trade secrets?
    • How biased is they information that they produce?
 
Objective
  • What is the goal or objective of the use of AI?
  • What is the goal of sharing information about it?
    • To inform?
    • To convince?
    • To find financial support?
Bias
  • What could create bias in the AI technology?
  • Are there ethical issues associated with this?
  • Are bias or ethical issues acknowledged?
    • By the source of information?
    • By the party responsible for the AI?
    • By its users?
Owner
  • Who is the owner or developer of the AI technology?
  • Who is responsible for it?
    • Is it a private company?
    • The government?
    • A think tank or research group?
  • Who has access to it?
  • Who can use it?
Type
  • Which subtype of AI is it?
  • Is the technology theoretical or applied?
  • What kind of information system does it rely on?
  • Does it rely on human intervention? 

Hervieux, S. & Wheatley, A. (2020). The ROBOT test [Evaluation tool]. The LibrAIry. https://thelibrairy.wordpress.com/2020/03/11/the-robot-test

Citation Styles

The cover of the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook is displayed on an e-reader. Behind the e-reader is the book's print cover.

According to the guidelines (last updated in June 2023), 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 
  • 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

Using the MLA Template

Author

We do not recommend treating the AI tool as an author. 

Title of Source

Describe what was generated by the AI tool = prompt

Title of Container

Name the AI tool (e.g., ChatGPT).

Version

Name the version of the AI tool as specifically as possible. For example, the example below was developed using ChatGPT 3.5, which assigns a specific date to the version, so the Version element shows this version date.

Publisher

Name the company that made the tool (OpenAI, Google)

Date

Give the date the content was generated.

Location

The URL

In-text Citation

(“Describe the symbolism”)

Works-Cited-List 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.

APA Style Logo

According to the guidelines (last updated in February 2023), if you’ve used ChatGPT or other AI tools in your research, describe how you used the tool.

In your text, provide the prompt you used and then any portion of the relevant text that was generated in response.

You may also put the full text of long responses from ChatGPT in an appendix of your paper or in online supplemental materials, so readers have access to the exact text that was generated.

Elements

Author 

The author of the model is OpenAI.

Date

Only the year, not the exact date

Title

The name of the model is “ChatGPT,” so that serves as the title and is italicized in your reference. Although OpenAI labels unique iterations (i.e., ChatGPT-3, ChatGPT-4), they are using “ChatGPT” as the general name of the model, with updates identified with version numbers. The version number is included after the title in parentheses, which can include either a date or a numbering system (e.g., Version 2.0). 

[In Brackets]

For ChatGPT, provide the descriptor “Large language model” in square brackets. OpenAI describes ChatGPT-4 as a “large multimodal model,” so that description may be provided instead if you are using ChatGPT-4. Later versions and software or models from other companies may need different descriptions, based on how the publishers describe the model. The goal of the bracketed text is to briefly describe the kind of model to your reader.

Source

When the publisher name and the author name are the same, do not repeat the publisher name in the source element of the reference, and move directly to the URL. Use the URL that links as directly as possible to the source (i.e., the page where you can access the model, not the publisher’s homepage).

In-text Citation

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

  • Parenthetical citation: (OpenAI, 2023)
  • Narrative citation: OpenAI (2023)

 

Authors who have relied on content generated by a chatbot or similar AI tool must make it clear how the tool has been used (either in the text or in a preface or the like). 

Any specific content, whether quoted or paraphrased, should be cited where it occurs, either in the text or in a note. 

Like personal communications (see 14.111) and social media posts (see 14.106), chatbot conversations are not usually included in a bibliography or reference list (but see examples).

14.112: Citing AI-generated content

In the three examples on the right, ChatGPT is the author of the content (though not in the traditional sense), and OpenAI is the publisher or developer.

The URL points to a publicly archived copy of the conversation (see also 13.6, 13.17).

Include the date the content was generated in addition to a version number.

If the AI-generated text has been edited or adapted in any way, this fact should be acknowledged in the text or in the note (as in example note 2).
Cited in the text:

The following recipe for pizza dough was generated on December 9, 2023, by ChatGPT-3.5.

Cited in a note:

1. Text generated by ChatGPT-3.5, OpenAI, December 9, 2023, https://chat.openai.com/share/90b8137d-ff1c-4c0c-b123-2868623c4ae2.

A prompt, if not included in the text, may be added to the note. Multiple prompts (as in an extended conversation) may be summarized:

2. Response to “Explain how to make pizza dough from common household ingredients,” ChatGPT-3.5, Open AI, December 9, 2023, edited for style and accuracy.

If for any reason an AI conversation is included in a bibliography or reference list, cite it under the name of the publisher or developer rather than the name of the tool and include a publicly available URL (see also 14.104):

Google. Response to “How many copyeditors does it take to fix a book-length manuscript?” Gemini 1.0, February 10, 2024. https://g.co/gemini/share/cccc26abdc19.

Contact Us

If you need help citing your sources, the Reference Librarians are available!