If you use text or an image generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) tool, you need to include an in-text citation and a corresponding reference list entry. The format for the reference list entry is:
Author. (Date). Title (version) [Type of source]. URL
There are the four elements of the citation:
- Author: the company that created the tool
- Date: the year of the version you used (just the year, not the exact date)
- Title: the name of the tool (ChatGPT, DALL-E, etc.), with the version in parentheses
- Version: Copy the version as it's listed on the website of the tool or company. This may be a date (e.g., March 14 version) or a version number (e.g., version 2.3).
- Type of source: Text in brackets are descriptions to help your reader understand what’s being cited. Many common sources, such as journal articles and books, do not include bracketed descriptions, but things outside of the typical peer-reviewed system often do. In the case of an AI tool, describe the type of tool.
- URL: the URL (web address) of the tool
Here's an example:
OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat
Not sure about the name of the company or how to describe the tool?
Do a quick search for the name of the tool plus "Wikipedia" (e.g.: DALL-E Wikipedia). The first line of the Wikipedia entry will likely include both the company name and a brief description of the type of tool. For example, here's the first line of the DALL-E article on Wikipedia:
DALL-E (stylized as DALL·E), DALL-E 2, and DALL-E 3 are text-to-image models developed by OpenAI using deep learning methodologies to generate digital images from natural language descriptions, called "prompts".
OpenAI is the name of the company that created that tool, and "text-to-image model" is the type of tool.
