APA Citation Style: Generative AI Tools

Tips for Using AI Tools Ethically

• Always confirm with your instructor it is ok to use AI tools for each assignment. 
• There are many AI tools, be clear with your instructor on which tool you want to use and why.
• AI tools are known to create false information and citations and to present outdated information, be sure to verify its response before putting it in your work.
• AI tools mine and use the intellectual property of others without permission or giving credit, be aware of the ethical implications of this when using them.
• Al tools will give the same or similar text, often in the same format, to anyone else who asks the same question. Be aware of this, especially when publishing or presenting. Do not assume your prompt is unique.
• AI tools are not unbiased despite their tone and our perception of them. From being trained on biased or outdated sources to your own unconscious biases in your prompt, bias can and does show up in their responses.
• Choose AI tools that protect both your and your data’s privacy by allowing you to use it anonymously (No account/login to access).
• When working with protected or proprietary data consider ways to ensure privacy isn’t compromised by AI tool use.
   

While it is considered personal communication it is not included in the in-text citations, unlike other more types of personal communications. Instead, in-text citations follow the basic format of author/creator name and date. You can also include a note in the in-text citation to refer the reader to the full transcript in an appendix. Do this when you want the reader to understand the generated results more fully.

Examples:

Narrative: OpenAI’s ChatGPT when given a prompt of “Do bears really like honey?” the generated text stated that bears “are attracted to the sweet taste of honey and will often go to great lengths to access beehives to get it, as famously depicted in stories like Winne the Pooh” (2023).

Parenthetical: (OpenAI, 2023)

Parenthetical with a note: (OpenAI, 2023; See Appendix A for full

transcript)

Again, unlike typical personal communications, these ARE included in the reference page. They will have the same elements as other references with some differences.

Author/Creator: As there is no person doing the communicating but rather an algorithm, the algorithm’s creator/developer becomes the author.  In many cases this will be a company name not a personal one and you may need to research to find it out.

     For example: ChatGPT = OpenAI, Bard = Google, Quillbot = Quillbot

 Date: This is the year of the version you used. You do not need to include the full date as the version information will provide further details.

Title/Name of Tool: The name of the tool used is considered the title. It should be italicized and be the general name of the model used.  Any other identifying information will be included in the version.

Version: This is expressed as the date you accessed it on if there is no other identifying information given by the publisher/author. Again, you may have to research to find this out.

[Additional description for the reader]: APA recommends using “large language model” or “Large multimodal model” for text based generative AI tools.

URL: This should be the most direct URL available to access the tool use.

Reference template:

Author/Creator. (Year). Title/Name of Tool (Version). [Additional description for the reader]. URL

Reference examples:

OpanAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Oct 25 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (ChatGPT-4) [Large multimodal model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat