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Artificial Intelligence

This guide provides information about artificial intelligence for faculty and students.

How to Cite AI-Generated Content

Chicago Style
https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Documentation/faq0422.html

Here are some general guidelines for referencing AI-generated content in Chicago style:

  • Treat the AI tool as the author of the content.
  • If possible, describe the prompt used to generate the content in the text, but if that approach doesn't work, you can include that information in a footnote or endnote.
  • The date used in your citation will be the date the content was generated.

Format:
1. Author, Title, Publisher, Date, url for the tool.  

Example (if information about the prompt has been included within the text of your paper):

  1. Text generated by ChatGPT, OpenAI, July 7, 2025, https://chat.openai.com/chat.

  2. Text generated by Copilot, Microsoft, August 10, 2025, https://copilot.microsoft.com/.

  3. Text generated by Gemini, Google, September 12, 2025, https://gemini.google.com/.

  4. Text generated by Claude, Anthropic, October 5, 2025, https://claude.ai/.

  5. Text generated by Perplexity, Perplexity AI, November 1, 2025, https://www.perplexity.ai/.

Example (including information about the prompt):

1. ChatGPT (or CoPilot, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, etc.), response to "Explain how to make pizza dough from common household ingredients," OpenAI, March 7, 2023, https://chat.openai.com/chat. 

Chicago style requires that you cite AI-generated content in your work by including either a note or a parenthetical citation but advises you not to include that source in your bibliography or reference list.  The reason given for this is that, because you cannot provide a link to the conversation or session with the AI tool, you should treat that content as you would a phone call or private conversation. However, AI tools are starting to introduce functionality that does allow a user to generate a sharable link to a chat conversation, so this guidance from the Chicago Manual of Style may change. 

General Guidance on Citing AI

If you choose to use generative AI tools for course assignments, academic work, or other forms of published writing, you should give special attention to how you acknowledge and cite the output of those tools in your work. You should always check with your instructor before using AI for coursework. 

Here are some fundamental ideas that hold true for citing AI generated content, no matter which citation style you're using:

  • Do cite or acknowledge the outputs of generative AI tools when you use them in your work. This includes direct quotations and paraphrasing, as well as using the tools for tasks, such as editing, translation, idea generation, and data processing. 
  • Do not use sources that are cited by AI tools without reading those sources yourself. There are two different reasons for this:
    • Generative AI tools will sometimes create fake citations, which are described as "hallucinations".
    • These tools may cite a real piece of writing, but the cited content may be inaccurate. 

  • Be flexible in your approach to citing AI-generated content, because emerging guidelines will always lag behind the current state of technology, and the way that technology is applied. If you are unsure of how to cite something, include a note in your text that describes how you used a certain tool. 

  • When in doubt, remember that we cite sources for two primary purposes: first, to give credit to the author or creator; and second, to help others locate the sources you used in your research. Use these two concepts to help make decisions about using and citing AI-generated content.