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Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Media Literacy

General Citation Questions

Can Generative AI (Artificial Intelligence) provide a list of sources based on my topic?

What is Generative AI?

ChatGPT is an example generative text artificial intelligence (AI) tool developed by OpenAI and launched in November 2022. Other tools include Consensus  https://consensus.app/  and Elicit  https://elicit.com/ 

How Generative AI works

  • Generative AI does NOT work like Google or the library databases.
  • It does not search the Internet or the scholarly journals in the library.
  • It learns using a snapshot of massive amounts of training data taken from the Internet from time to time.

Generative AI and Reference Credibility

  • Prompting AI to locate sources about your research topic will generate a list of references that may seem like legitimate citations to articles.
  • AI references might be "hallucinations" and not even exist as published research. While hallucinations do happen on occasion, not all AI is equally prone to inventing sources.
  • Some references provided by AI may exist because they were included in the training data, but no distinction is made between real and made-up citations in the list generated.
  • AI is answering the prompt with what it thinks are examples of sources relevant to your research topic.

Additional FAQs

FAQ: How do I use the Multi-Search to locate the full-text of a citation generated by ChatGPT, from Google, or referenced in a scholarly work?

FAQ: How do I use the Publication Finder to locate the full-text of a citation generated by ChatGPT, from Google, or referenced in a scholarly work?

AI

Citation and Artificial Intelligence (AI)

With the increased integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into daily life and academia, it's important to understand how to properly credit anything that comes from an artificially generated source. Scroll down to find citation examples for APA, MLA, and Chicago as well as useful do's and don'ts when using AI at SNHU and some frequently asked questions about best practices. 

APA Style 

The APA recently posted Citing generative AI in APA Style This link opens in a new window in their APA Style blog. The post is informative for citing generative AI tools, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Microsoft CoPilot, in your papers and discussion posts.

As of September 2025, APA now recommends that you cite the specific AI chat, rather than citing the AI tool only. The following examples from the APA's Style Blog This link opens in a new window demonstrate how to do that:

Citing a Specific Chat

General Format

AI Company Name. (year, month day). Title of chat in italics [Description, such as Generative AI chat]. Tool Name/Model. URL of the chat

Reference (Full) Entry

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

In-Text Citation

(OpenAI, 2025)

OR

OpenAI (2025)

Citing an AI Tool Generally

APA allows for citing an AI tool in a general way if you want to point to its existence without citing specific content you retrieved from a chat with the tool.

General Format

AI Company Name. (year). Tool Name/Model in Italics and Title Case [Description; e.g., Large language model]. URL of the tool

Reference (Full) Entry

OpenAI. (2025). ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chatgpt.com/

In-Text Citation

(OpenAI, 2025)

OR

OpenAI (2025)

Disclaimer

This information is intended to be a guideline, not expert advice. Please be sure to speak to your instructor about the appropriate way to cite sources in your class assignments and projects.

MLA Style

The MLA Style recently posted How do I cite generative AI in MLA style? in Ask the MLA. They include how to cite paraphrased and quoted text, AI-generated images, quoted creative textual works (e.g. AI-generated poems), and secondary sources used by an AI tool. Please see the MLA Style post for more comprehensive instructions.

MLA Citation Examples

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.

Paraphrased in Your Prose

While the green light in The Great Gatsby might be said to chiefly symbolize four main things: optimism, the unattainability of the American dream, greed, and covetousness (“Describe the symbolism”), arguably the most important—the one that ties all four themes together—is greed.

Disclaimer

This information is intended to be a guideline, not expert advice. Please be sure to speak to your professor about the appropriate way to cite sources in your class assignments and projects.

Student Guide to Artificial Intelligence

For help using AI in the SNHU environment, read through the following document for helpful Do's and Don't's.