If you choose to use ChatGPT or some other AI technology for writing, be sure you are transparent about your use of it with your teachers and publishers and working within their policies and parameters. Each citation style has different recommendations for citing generative AI tools like ChatGPT.
Check with the individual style guides for more detailed instructions on in text citation and variations.
APA Style instructions for how to cite ChatGPT and other generative AI tools.
Chicago Style FAQ answer on the recommended method for citing ChatGPT and other generative AI.
A collection of resources to help you learn and identify different citations formats and management systems.
The MLA Style Center gives advice for how to cite artificial intelligence.
The Purdue Owl gives instructions on how to cite interviews and other non-print sources in APA style.
Before including generative AI tools in a project you intend to get published, make sure your target journal and publisher allow the integration of AI generated text and images with manuscript submissions. Below are a few example publisher statements or policy on the use of AI in article submissions.
Elsevier’s new AI author policy focuses on ensuring the integrity of the scholarly record and aims to provide greater transparency and guidance to authors, readers, reviewers, editors and contributors.
IEEE Guidelines on AI-Generated Text: The use of artificial intelligence (AI)–generated text in an article shall be disclosed in the acknowledgements section of any paper submitted to an IEEE Conference or Periodical. The sections of the paper that use AI-generated text shall have a citation to the AI system used to generate the text.
“Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, do not currently satisfy our authorship criteria. Notably an attribution of authorship carries with it accountability for the work, which cannot be effectively applied to LLMs. Use of an LLM should be properly documented in the Methods section (and if a Methods section is not available, in a suitable alternative part) of the manuscript.”
PLOS expects that articles should report the listed authors’ own work and ideas. Any contributions made by other sources must be clearly and correctly attributed.
Policy outlining the use of both AI assistive and generative AI technologies in manuscript submissions.
News post summarizing the changes Taylor & Francis made to author and editorial policy pages regarding the use of generative AI.
Your ability to use material generated by AI tools in projects, presentations and publications may be determined by the terms of use or terms and conditions of the GAI tool. Material created by GAI tools do not currently receive copyright protections in the United States. If the terms of use do not address further uses of material generated by the GAI tool, then you are free to use the material.
Some environments and publication arenas require full attribution for images and text that have been generated with AI.
Microsoft Copyright Copilot Commitment clearly establishes that there are no restrictions of GAI created materials.
USF Libraries guide on AI Tools and Resources instructions how to cite generative AI.
Currently, copyright protection is not granted to works created by Artificial Intelligence. The U.S. Copyright Office has issued guidance that explains the requirement for human authorship to be granted copyright protection and provides information to creators working in tandem with AI tools on how to effectively and correctly registered their works.
"The Copyright Office has launched an initiative to examine the copyright law and policy issues raised by artificial intelligence (AI) technology, including the scope of copyright in works generated using AI tools and the use of copyrighted materials in AI training. "
Guidance for registering Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence by the U.S. Copyright Office
Generative AI tools can be used to infringe on a copyright owner’s exclusive rights by producing derivatives. Before entering any copyrighted material into a generative AI tool as part of a prompt, permissions may need to be obtained.
Matthew Sag also pointed out another way that GAI tools can be used to infringe on copyright without the direct use of copyrighted material. In what he has dubbed the ‘Snoopy Problem,’ copyrighted works, like fictional characters, can be ‘memorized’ and later generated by AI based on a user prompt. In his 2024 “Response to Lee and Grimmelmann” he explains that “the Snoopy Problem is that the more abstractly a copyrighted work is protected, the more likely it is that a generative AI model will “copy” it.”
Information on requesting permissions to use copyrighted material including a request template from USF.
Generative AI tools are trained on collections of material gathered from many places. Some AI image and text generation tools have been trained on material scraped from web pages without the consent or knowledge of the web page owners.
As of April 2024 several law suits have been brought against AI image and text generation platforms that have used visual and text content created or owned by others as training material. These law suits claim that the use of artists’ or writers' content, without permissions, to train generative AI is an infringement of copyright. Others have pointed to previous fair use cases to justify a fair use argument for the use of various training data for generative AI.
While these cases are ongoing, we have no definitive legal answer on whether the training of AI models is considered an infringement of copyright.
Keep track of the prompts you use, as well as any copyright attributions from where the AI sourced its data. Find what the specific AI tool you used recommends for citations, as well as the regulations for Generative AI (GAI) in your particular field.
Keep in mind that AI generated images or text do not currently have copyright protections, and so any sections of your work that were created using GAI will not likely be protected.
Ensure the privacy of your content when prompting GAI. Many tools use previous prompts as part of future datasets, and so refrain from inputting sensitive information into prompts. Personal information and company secrets have been leaked in the past due to their input into a GAI tool.
Similarly, large portions of copyrighted material is also advised against use in prompting.
Do NOT use AI tools to create citations for your material. They are known to hallucinate (confidently state incorrect information), and can fabricate sources that do not exist and are unlikely to give an accurate citation on your . Use the library's other recommended resources for building your bibliography or works cited.
