APA Style Guide: Generative AI

Guidance:

According to the APA Style Blog, quoting text from a chat session with a generative AI tool is “like sharing an algorithm’s output; thus, credit the author of the algorithm with a reference list entry and the corresponding in-text citation (...).You may also put the full text of long responses from [the relevant generative AI tool] in an appendix of your paper or in online supplemental materials, so readers have access to the exact text that was generated.” (McAdoo, 2023)

Since the output of a  chat session with a generative AI tool is not retrievable by other readers, you should include it in an appendix, and refer readers to this appendix when you cite the AI-generated text (Southern Cross University Library, 2023)

Reference:

Company. (Year accessed). Program (Month Day version) [Large language model]. URL

The month and day used in this citation style will be the date you accessed/used the resource.

Example:

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (May 18 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat.

In-Text Citation:

Narrative citation: Company (Year) or Company (Year; see Appendix A for the full transcript)

Parenthetical citation: (Company, Year) or (Company, Year; see Appendix A for the full transcript)

Examples: 

When using OpenAI (2023; see Appendix A for the full transcript) to complete the prompt “Summarise 3 main points from the article “The Role of Librarians in Academic Success” by Claudia J. Dold”, the most recurring ideas were the following: librarians are teachers of information and literacy skills, internal and external collaborators, and scholars within their field.

Archery has been used since the Paelolithic Era to aid in hunting and protection. Since this sport was important to many regions around the world, it became a sport recognized by the Olympics and debuted in the 1900s games, and later became a permanent sport in 1972 (OpenAI, 2023).

When including the full text of the Chat interaction in an appendix to record the details of the prompt response (particularly important as each interaction with the same prompt is likely to generate a new and unique response), make a notation as below.

One relevant perspective is the concept of "ideology" or "rhetoric" in relation to dictators and authoritarian leaders. According to this view, leaders use propaganda, manipulation, and control over discourse to justify their actions, maintain their power, and suppress dissent (OpenAI, 2025; See Appendix C for the full transcript).

updated 14 February 2025

References: