Using Generative AI in Research: Citing Generative AI

Generative AI tools are evolving rapidly, and it can be challenging to keep up with developments.

The citation information provided below will be updated on a regular basis but please make sure to check for the date it was last updated and check other sources if you feel there may be more current information available. With this rapidly changing environment, we will do our best to stay up to date but cannot guarantee that this Research Guide always has all of the most recent updates.

Before using Generative AI tools in your research paper, check with your instructor about their policy on using and citing AI for course work.

Please also be aware that tools such as ChatGPT may provide citations or references, but these sources of information may not actually exist and can even be "made up" entirely.

Do not rely on the information provided by Generative AI. Do your own due diligence and "fact checking" when using information provided by any AI tool.

From the MLA Style Center (MLA Handbook 9th Edition)

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 any AI tool. 
• 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. 
• provide a stable, shareable URL to the AI conversation you are citing. A general link to the AI tool can be provided if that stable URL feature isn’t available in the tool you are using. Use the AI tool’s model name or number in the version element. 

See below for specific examples. And keep in mind: the MLA template of core elements is meant to provide flexibility in citation. So if you find a rationale to modify these recommendations in your own citations, we encourage you to do so. 

Using the MLA Template

Author
We do not recommend treating the AI tool as an author. This recommendation follows the policies developed by various publishers, including the MLA’s journal PMLA. 

Title of Source
Describe what was generated by the AI tool. This may involve including information about the prompt in the Title of Source element if you have not done so in the text. 

Title of Container
Use the Title of Container element to name the AI tool (e.g., ChatGPT).

Version
Name the specific AI model or model version as specifically as possible. For instance, the examples in this post were developed using the GPT-5.2 model of ChatGPT.

Publisher
Name the company that made the tool.

Date
Provide the date the content was generated.

Location
Give the stable, shareable URL for accessing the generated content (e.g., text, an image, etc.). For example, tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E allow you to share a link by clicking the Share link at the top of the chat conversation. If the tool you are using doesn’t provide a stable, shareable URL, provide the general URL for the tool.

Example for paraphrasing text:

Passage in source
“Nature in Mansfield Park often mirrors the personalities or inner states of the characters. The different environments – Mansfield Park, Sotherton, and the wilderness at the parsonage – are symbolic of the moral choices and the values of the people who inhabit them.”

Paraphrased in your prose
In Mansfield Park, physical locations like Mansfield Park and Sotherton reflect the morality and choices of the people who live in them (“Describe the theme”).

Works-cited list entry
“Describe the theme of nature in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park” prompt. ChatGPT, model GPT-4o, OpenAI, 23 Sept. 2024, chatgpt.com/share/66f1b0a0-d704-8000-be9a-85f53c850607 

Example for quoting:
Passage in source:
“Nature in Mansfield Park often mirrors the personalities or inner states of the characters. The different environments – Mansfield Park, Sotherton, and the wilderness at the parsonage – are symbolic of the moral choices and the values of the people who inhabit them.”

Quoted in your prose
Nature is depicted frequently throughout Mansfield Park, and it “often mirrors the personalities or inner states of the characters” (“Describe the theme”).

Works-cited list entry 
“Describe the theme of nature in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park” prompt. ChatGPT, model GPT-4o, OpenAI, 23 Sept. 2024, chatgpt.com/share/66f1b0a0-d704-8000-be9a-85f53c850607

Please refer to MLA Style Center for more examples for paraphrasing text, quoting text, citing creative visual works, quoting creative textual works, and citing secondary sources created by an AI tool.

Last updated: August 13, 2025

APA currently recommends discussing how you used AI tools for research in the method section of your paper. For literature reviews or other types of response or reaction papers, APA recommends describing how you used the tool in your introduction section or author notes.

For specific AI chats that would be helpful to readers, provide a reference to the specific chat. In your paper, you may describe the prompt you used as well as the relevant result that was created.

Example: When prompted with "Is the left brain right brain divide real or a metaphor?" the AI-generated text indicated that "It is partly real and partly a misleading metaphor" (OpenAI, 2026).

Reference Example:

OpenAI. (2026). ChatGPT (Feb 27 version) [Large Language Model]. https://chatgpt.com/share/69a1d124-6fd4-800c-a686-6efd316ebfbe

For general AI tool use (such as editing, brainstorming, or translation), cite the tool generally rather than specific chats.

Example: I used ChatGPT (OpenAI, 2026) to help refine the clarity and flow of my writing.

Reference Example:

OpenAI. (2026). ChatGPT (Feb 27 version) [Large Language Model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

You may also want to add the full text generated by AI in an appendix or online supplemental materials when citing specific chats.

Example: When given a follow-up prompt of "What is a more accurate representation?" the AI-generated text indicated that "the brain is a set of distributed, interacting networks with some hemispheric specialization" and "different sections may take the lead at different times, but the performance depends on coordination" (OpenAI, 2026; see Appendix A for the full transcript).

Reference Example:

OpenAI. (2026). ChatGPT (Feb 27 version) [Large Language Model]. https://chatgpt.com/share/69a1d124-6fd4-800c-a686-6efd316ebfbe

Source:
McAdoo, T. (2025, Sept 15). How to cite ChatGPT. APA Style Blog. https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/how-to-cite-chatgpt 

The Chicago Manual of Style Online recommends that a numbered footnote or endnote in a research paper follows this example:

1. Text generated by ChatGPT, March 7, 2023, OpenAI, https://chat.openai.com/chat.

If the prompt hasn’t been included in the text, it can be included in the note:

1. ChatGPT, response to “Explain how to make pizza dough from common household ingredients,” March 7, 2023, OpenAI.

If you’re using author-date instead of notes, any information not in the text would be placed in a parenthetical text reference. For example, “(ChatGPT, March 7, 2023).”

But don’t cite ChatGPT in a bibliography or reference list. Though OpenAI assigns unique URLs to conversations generated from your prompts, those can’t be used by others to access the same content (they require your login credentials), making a ChatGPT conversation like an email, phone, or text conversation—or any other type of personal communication (see CMOS 14.214 and 15.53).

To sum things up, you must credit ChatGPT when you reproduce its words within your own work, but that information should be put in the text or in a note—not in a bibliography or reference list. Other AI-generated text can be cited similarly.

Source: The Chicago Manual of Style Online. Retrieved from FAQ Item (chicagomanualofstyle.org) on 6/23/2023