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APA 7 Style Guide: Using and citing AI

A guide to using APA style in writing research papers

Can I use AI for assignments?

Check with your instructor before using AI resources for your assignments.  They may have policies about using AI-generated content, or have a specific way they want you to cite when you use it.

AI engines such as ChapGPT, Bard, or similar are not really intelligent.  They are generative language applications that have been 'trained' on large amounts of text, and when given a prompt, they predict what word will come next in a sentence.  This means that while they are useful for many things, they aren't 100% reliable -- an AI app may tell you that Pocahontas learned to paint with all the colors of the wind -- and they are not the same thing as an information source like a journal article or a book.  An AI does not know things; it cannot exercise judgement, and when it produces citations, they are nearly always fictional.  Exercise caution when using these apps!

APA Citations for AI

 

The basic format for an APA citation will be as follows:

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

  • Parenthetical citation: (OpenAI, 2023)
  • Narrative citation: OpenAI (2023)

 

The APA has put out some guidelines on using and citing AI-generated text.  Here are some highlights:

If you’ve used ChatGPT or other AI tools in your research, describe how you used the tool in your Method section or in a comparable section of your paper. For literature reviews or other types of essays or response or reaction papers, you might describe how you used the tool in your introduction. In your text, provide the prompt you used and then any portion of the relevant text that was generated in response.

Example text:

When prompted with “Is the left brain right brain divide real or a metaphor?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that although the two brain hemispheres are somewhat specialized, “the notation that people can be characterized as ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained’ is considered to be an oversimplification and a popular myth” (OpenAI, 2023).

Reference

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

 

You may also put the full text of long responses from ChatGPT in an appendix of your paper or in online supplemental materials, so readers have access to the exact text that was generated. It is particularly important to document the exact text created because ChatGPT will generate a unique response in each chat session, even if given the same prompt. If you create appendices or supplemental materials, remember that each should be called out at least once in the body of your APA Style paper.

Example text:

When given a follow-up prompt of “What is a more accurate representation?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that “different brain regions work together to support various cognitive processes” and “the functional specialization of different regions can change in response to experience and environmental factors” (OpenAI, 2023; see Appendix A for the full transcript).

Reference

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

 

Find out more by reading the APA's article: