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 How to cite ChatGPT This link opens in a new window in their APA Style blog. The post is informative if you want to cite the chat transcript (included as an appendix) in your paper or discussion book.

APA Citation Examples

Reference (Full) Entry

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

In-Text Citation

(OpenAI, 2023)

OpenAI (2023)

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.

Citing AI in APA Style Script

MLA Style

The MLA Style recently posted How do I cite generative AI in MLA style? This link opens in a new window in Ask the MLA This link opens in a new window. 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.

Citing AI in MLA Script

Chicago Style

According to the Chicago Manual of Style This link opens in a new window:

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 This link opens in a new window) and social media posts (see 14.106 This link opens in a new window), chatbot conversations are not usually included in a bibliography or reference list (but see below). In the first three examples that follow, 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 This link opens in a new window, 13.17 This link opens in a new window). 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 This link opens in a new window).

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.

Citing AI in Chicago Style Script

Quick 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.

Quick Guide to Artificial Intelligence

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/ This link opens in a new window and Elicit https://elicit.com/ This link opens in a new window.

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.

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?

Citations generated by ChatGPT and from Google searches should be carefully checked for accuracy if you plan to include them in your work. ChatGPT has been known to fabricate citations and database citation tools do not always format the citation correctly.

Use the Library's Multi-Search or Publication Finder to both verify that a citation exists and to locate the full-text of the source described by the citation. Use the Library's Guide to Citing Your Sources to correctly format your citations. For details about correctly attributing the work of others, see the SNHU Academic Integrity Policy for online students or for campus students.

Multi-Search (for journal article and book citations)

The Multi-Search on the library homepage searches across multiple library databases at the same time. The more databases that are searched, the more likely a search result.

Copy-and-paste (rather than type) the full title of the article or eBook from the citation into the Multi-Search box, then Search. Copy-and-pasting minimizes the chance of typos which can easily lead you to "no search results found".
In the following example the item's title (an article) "Space Mining & Exploration: Facing a Pivotal Moment" has been copy-and-pasted into the Multi-Search:
The item should appear on a short list of search results (it may in fact be the only search result). Look for links to the full-text under the item title:
Click on the title of the item in the page of search results to see more detailed information about that item (see screenshot below). Note the Cite and Permalink (permanent link) icons in the Tools column along the right side of the page. The Cite tool displays the full citation for the item in a variety of citation formats that;can be copy-and-pasted into your list of references. The Permalink lets you easily access the item again at a later time:
If the search comes back with "no results found", check for typos in the title and try again, or search using a portion of the title (the first four words, for example), or search using the unique keywords (nouns, proper names, jargon) in the title. If you are still not seeing what you want and the citation is to a journal article (not an eBook) use the Publication Finder to find the issue of the journal containing the article you seek. For eBooks, search the Library databases that include eBooks & eBook Chapters.

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?

Publication Finder (for article citations, not books)

The Publication Finder is a list of journals, magazines, trade publications, and newspapers organized alphabetically by name as well as by subject. The list includes both scholarly and popular publication titles, and each publication displays a list of the databases which contain the years available for that title. The citation you have may provide the date, volume, and issue number of the publication that contains the article, but even a partial citation (author, article title, journal title) can be useful.

For example, the following article citation (this one in APA format) might appear in a Google search, or in ChatGPT or AI output, or in a published list of references, and you want to locate the full text so you can verify the article exists and to correctly cite it. View this infographic for identifying details of an APA citation This link opens in a new window. The citation details needed for using the Publication Finder are highlighted in blue below, in order of (Publication Year), Journal Title, Volume(Issue Number), and Page Numbers. The Author and Article Title are less useful at this point:

Skauge, T. (2020). Space Mining & Exploration. Journal of Corporation Law, 45(3), 815–832.

You can also use the Multi-Search to search by the title of an article or book.

Open the Publication Finder from the Shapiro Library home page using the drop-down menu under Find Resources:
Copy-and-paste or enter the Journal Title into the search box:
A list of relevant journals appears, and if you click on Full Text Access, a list of database appears, showing the publication date range of the journal available in that database. Click on a database with the date range that includes the Year supplied in the citation. There may be several databases to choose from - Gale Academic OneFile is used in this example:
Select the Year, Volume Number and Issue Number of the journal and click on the appropriate one to see the table of contents of that issue:
Scroll the table of contents for the needed article. Click the title to access the Full text of the article and a citation tool (in this example the " icon on the top right) are also provided in most cases: