Generative AI Student Research Guide

 Modern Language Association states citation for AI generated tools needs to take place if doing the following: 

• paraphrasing, direct quoting or incorporating AI into your own work content, this includes any text, images, data etc. that was created by AI
• using any functional tools of AI, like to edit prose or translate words etc. (this can be cited in a note or be mentioned directly in your text). 

Core Elements

• Author: blank (an AI tool is not considered an author)
• Title of source: the prompt you used to generate the text or a description if the prompt itself is too long
• Title of container: the name of the AI tool, such as ChatGPT
• Version: the tool’s version (some tools list their version as a date)
• Publisher: the company that created the AI
• Date: the date you accessed the AI, in day-month-year format
• Location: the URL of the tool

Works-Cited List Example:

   "Describe the religious themes of Lord of the Rings" prompt. ChatGPT,13 Feb. version, OpenAI, 8 Mar. 2023, chat.openai.com/chat.

In-Text Example:

         Example: original prompt is "Describe the religious themes of Lord of the Rings" 

         In-text parenthetical citation: ("Describe the religious themes")    

 Body of text with in-text example: Sacrifice, redemption, and the feud between good and evil are all present in J. R. R Tolkien’s series (“Describe the religious themes”), but some are more prevalent than others.  

In MLA, if the caption of your AI-generated image contains full bibliographic details and you do not refer to the image anywhere else in your assignment, you do not have to include the citation for it in a Works Cited list.

Fig. number. “Text of prompt” prompt, Title of model, version 3.5, Model developer, Day Month Year, URL.

Example:

Fig. 1. "Dragons in a library" prompt, Stable Diffusion, version 3.5, Stablility.ai, 28 Oct. 2024, https://stabledifffusion.com/.

Explain your search method and results in your paper as well as cite the source you have used in order not to plagiarize.

Due to the inability to replicate information in A.I., even when using the same prompt, APA recommends adding an appendix at the end of the paper that includes the full conversations between the user and the A.I.

The basic format for a reference page citation according to APA style:

• Author: The author of the model being used (i.e., OpenAI, Meta, Google)
• Date: The date is the year of the version you used
• Title: The name of the model used (i.e., ChatGPT, LLaMA, Claude). This will be in italics. Theversion number is included after the title in parentheses
• Brackets: Bracketed text should be used as descriptors to help the reader understand the type ofsource, examples: [large language model]
• URL: listed at the end of the citation. Should lead to the home chat screen for the A.I. tool.