If you're using AI to generate text or images, you should acknowledge that in your citations, just like you would for a human author, artist, or photographer. If using AI is allowed on an assignment your professor gives you, each time you include something AI-generated, you have to cite it. (Remember that you can only use AI on an assignment if your professor specifically says so, and always double check with your instructor if you have questions about AI usage or citations.)
Citations and their formatting might seem irritating, but they're an important part of providing reliable information to an audience. Writing gets its credibility from sourcing the claims it makes. Readers need to be able to fact-check a writer's sources and trace where the claims in a piece come from.
If you are using AI to help with a draft or outline, you'll want to acknowledge that with a sentence at the beginning or end of the paper. For example: "This paper was produced with drafting support from Microsoft Copilot." Your instructor might have specific conventions for how they would like to list this as well, so it is always best practice to check in with them!
If you are citing a conversation with an AI tool, either as a source or as an object of study, explore each section below to learn how to cite AI text generators in different styles.
Learn more:
If you're referencing or including an AI-generated image in your papers, you should include information about how it was generated. This is also required for human-created artwork and some human-created photographs. In most citation styles, you don't need to include this in the works cited, only as a caption for the image.
This section of the guide was adapted from Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Information Literacy: Cite Correctly, by Ben Shaw at the University of Maryland Libraries.