Artificial Intelligence for College Students

While ACS has not yet specified citation guidelines for the use of generative AI (such as ChatGPT), their guidelines for Deriving a Citation for a New Content Type suggest adapting an already established format, in cases where it makes sense to do so.

Software is one already established ACS format that may make sense for an AI tool citation:

ChatGPT, ver. 3.5; OpenAI: San Francisco, 2023. https://openai.com/chatgpt (accessed 2023-06-22).

"In APA Style, you can cite a ChatGPT response as a personal communication, since the answers it gave you are not retrievable for other users. Cite it like this in the text: (ChatGPT, personal communication, February 11, 2023)."

"[Y]ou must credit ChatGPT when you reproduce its words within your own work, but that information should be put in the text or in a note—not in a bibliography or reference list. Other AI-generated text can be cited similarly. Check back with us for updates on this evolving topic."

MLA Style Guides indicate that "[users] should:

- Cite a generative AI tool whenever you paraphrase, quote, or incorporate into your own work any content (whether text, image, data, or other) that was created by it;
- Acknowledge all functional uses of the tool (like editing your prose or translating words) in a note, your text, or another suitable location; and
- Take care to vet the secondary sources it cites."