Artificial Intelligence: Tools for Students

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. 

As with all things related to AI, the norms and conventions for citing AI-generated content are likely to evolve over the next few years. For now, some of the major style guides have released preliminary guidelines. Individual publishers may have their own guidance on citing AI-generated content.

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 tool for tasks like editing, translating, 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 can create fake citations.
  • 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.