For additional examples of the citation styles presented here (with the exception of the Bluebook), check out the University of Waterloo's ChatGPT and Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI-generated content and citation research guide.
Additional links to citation resources will be posted here as they are found.
The Bluebook has not yet released any official guidelines or recommendations for citing content created by generative AI. However, Drexel University's Thomas R. Kline School of Law has created a recommended citation format in the meantime. Drexel recommends the following footnote format, based on Rule 18.2 - The Internet, Electronic Media, and Other Nonprint Resources. You may use the title ChatGPT or similar tools gives to your chat, or use your own descriptive title.
Author, Descriptive Title, MAIN PAGE TITLE (full date), URL.
Author, Chat Title, MAIN PAGE TITLE (full date), URL (explanatory parenthetical).
Example 1:
"Jordyne Lewis, a fifteen-year-old, experienced stress due to the pandemic and actively sought help from the chatbot Woebot."¹
Footnote:
Example 2:
When baking an evil chocolate cake, some ingredients may be difficult to track down, but it's possible to make due by substituting more standard ingredients. For instance, instead of using your enemies' ground ashes, you can use regular all-purpose flour, and cocoa powder can stand in for powdered darkness.²
Footnote:
The following information is taken from The Chicago Manual of Style's Citation, Documentation of Sources.
While you must credit ChatGPT and similar generative tools when you use the text they generate in your writing, for most styles of writing you can simply acknowledge the AI tool in your text. For example, "The following recipes for sugar cookies was generated by ChatGPT." If a more formal citation is needed, a numbered footnote or endnote may look like this:
If your prompt isn't included in the text of your work, it should be included in the footnote:
For in-text citations, any information not included in the text would be placed in a parenthetical next to the text references. For example, "(ChatGPT, October 2, 2023)."
If you cite the same AI response again, you can use the shortform of the citation in the footnote, including only the author and a shortened version of the title (with enough information to distinguish the cited prompt from others):
Do not cite ChatGPT or similar tools in a bibliography or reference list unless you provide a publicly available link through ShareGPT or A.I. Archives. Because they typically do not have publicly accessible URLs, they should be treated more as personal communication (e.g., letter, email, text message, etc. )
The following information is taken from APA Style's How to cite ChatGPT, and is applicable to ChatGPT and similar tools. The APA recommends using the citation format for software for ChatGPT and similar tools (section 10.10 of the Publication Manual).
The APA citation format does not include the prompt you used. Instead, your prompt should be included in your text along with the quote/paraphrase of any relevant portions of the AI's response. In-text citations should be formatted as parentheticals that include the author of the software and release date of the version you used. Note that the year is in reference to the version's release date, not the year you used it (though they will often match in most cases).
Example:
When prompted with “Is the left brain right brain divide real or a metaphor?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that although the two brain hemispheres are somewhat specialized, “the notation that people can be characterized as ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained’ is considered to be an oversimplification and a popular myth” (OpenAI, 2023).
Reference:
OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Oct 2 version) [Large Language Model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat
The following information is taken from the MLA Style Center's guidelines for citing ChatGPT and similar generative chatbots.
You should:
Example 1: Paraphrasing text
Text:
"“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.”
Works-cited 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.
Example 2: Quoting text
Text:
When asked to describe the symbolism of the green light in The Great Gatsby, ChatGPT provided a summary about optimism, the unattainability of the American dream, greed, and covetousness. However, when further prompted to cite the source on which that summary was based, it noted that it lacked “the ability to conduct research or cite sources independently” but that it could “provide a list of scholarly sources related to the symbolism of the green light in The Great Gatsby” (“In 200 words”).
Works-cited entry:
“In 200 words, describe the symbolism of the green light in The Great Gatsby” follow-up prompt to list sources. ChatGPT, 13 Feb. version, OpenAI, 9 Mar. 2023, chat.openai.com/chat.
While the examples above provide detailed descriptions of the prompts used, a more general description (e.g., Symbolism of the green light in The Great Gatsby prompt) could be used since you are describing something that mimics human conversation, which could have various prompts along the way. Just be sure to make your prompt descriptions detailed enough so it's clear to the reader what prompt a citation is referring to.