Citations help the reader see where your information is coming from: it helps them follow the information trail. If the reader wants to follow up on a particular point that you’re making, or a particular reference you have cited, they can easily do so because citations communicate information about your sources in a standardized format.
Beyond helping your reader understand where you obtained information, there is a strong ethical component to using citations. In an academic environment, you must give credit for ideas that are not your own, and citations are the primary way credit is given in the academic world. Failure to give credit is considered plagiarism, a form of theft. Consequences for plagiarism can be severe; see the MVCC Academic Integrity Policy.
Citations allow you to use the ideas and expertise of others and integrate that material with your own thoughts appropriately and ethically.
If using gAI, you must cite the content used to avoid plagiarism. Some assignments do not permit the use of ChatGPT or AI tools. Please confirm with your instructor if a generative AI tool is allowed.
Because generative AI is so new, policies on how to cite AI are still evolving. Below is what we do know about giving credit to AI tools used in your work. This information may change; check back for updates.
If you’ve used ChatGPT or other AI tools in your research, describe how you used the tool in your Method section or in a comparable section of your paper. For literature reviews or other types of essays or response or reaction papers, you might describe how you used the tool in your introduction. In your text, provide the prompt you used and then any portion of the relevant text that was generated in response.
Unfortunately, the results of a ChatGPT “chat” are not retrievable by other readers, and although nonretrievable data or quotations in APA Style papers are usually cited as personal communications, with ChatGPT-generated text there is no person communicating. Quoting ChatGPT’s text from a chat session is therefore more like sharing an algorithm’s output; thus, credit the author of the algorithm with a reference list entry and the corresponding in-text citation.
Name of Company/creator of generative AI Tool. (Year). Name of Tool (Month Date version) [Large language model]. URL.
OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (June 16 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat
- 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
"Prompt text" prompt. Name of AI tool used, Version, Company Responsible for Tool, date prompted, URL of tool.
“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.
Please note: The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition, has not officially released recommendations for referencing ChatBots and other forms of Artificial Intelligence. Please be sure to check back frequently for any updates.
This citation recommendation is for use in class assignments at the University of Waterloo where you have been asked to use AI generated text as part of your work and provide a reference.
FOOTNOTE OR ENDNOTE:
OpenAI's ChatGPT, response to query from author, February 15, 2023.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCE:
Author’s (Parent Company) Medium, Response to “Query in quotes.” Name of Website, Parent
Company, Date accessed, URL.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Response to “Explain to general audiences the possible causes and effects of climate
change.” ChatGPT, OpenAI, February 15, 2023, https://chatgpt.pro/.
When reusing or adapting this content, include this statement in the new document: This content was originally created by Mohawk Valley Community College Libraries and shared with a CC BY NC SA 4.0 license.
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