Vancouver Style Guide: Generative AI

This citation and referencing advice should be used only when your module coordinator or School allows the use of AI tools in the creation of academic assignments. If you have used an AI tool in the creation of an assignment, you must acknowledge this use and cite and reference the tool appropriately to ensure you are adhering to UCD's Academic Integrity Policy (see the Student Conduct website for this policy). 

Advice about citing and referencing AI tools is constantly evolving, and this guide updated on 24 March 2025, will continue to be updated as further information becomes available.

For the purposes of this guidance, generative AI is defined as per Article 3(1) of the EU AI Act:

“‘AI system’ means a machine-based system that is designed to operate with varying levels of autonomy and that may exhibit adaptiveness after deployment, and that, for explicit or implicit objectives, infers, from the input it receives, how to generate outputs such as predictions, content, recommendations, or decisions that can influence physical or virtual environments" (2024).

Generative AI often provides citations and sources that do not exist, or are inaccurate. Citations may also be inaccurate or missing appropriate notation within the text. All such references must be checked by the user to ensure the legitimacy of the references/citations provided by AI tools.

For general advice on citation and referencing please refer to our Academic Integrity guide.

References:

Guidance:

As of the creation of this guide there is no published guidance for citing generative AI in the Vancouver style. In the absence of authoritative guidance, UCD Library recommends treating the use of generative AI in the same manner as for citing an email communication or interviews.

The International Community of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) specify that AI tools are not to be treated as authors: "Chatbots (such as ChatGPT) should not be listed as authors because they cannot be responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of the work, and these responsibilities are required for authorship."¹

In-Text Citation:

In-text-citations are represented with a superscript numeric notation that corresponds to the item in your list of references.

Example:

Bevacizumab (Avastin) is an example of a targeted therapy that may be used to disrupt the tumor's blood supply. Other targeted therapies are being researched, but their efficacy remains limited.¹

Image Citation:

In lieu of definitive guidance, it is recommended that AI generated images be credited in the figure caption (as shown in Figure 1.) and referenced in the same manner as for text-based references (see below).

Reference:

As of October 20th 2023, some AI tools such as chatGPT and Bard generate shareable URLs that allow other readers to see the content of chat sessions with them. There are also browser plugins such as A.I. Archives which also generates shareable URLs for chat sessions.

Example with shareable URL generated by the AI Tool:

#. Name of AI Tool [type of medium]. Creator of tool; version date. [Accessed YYYY Month DD]. URL
1. ChatGPT. [Online conversation]. OpenAI; 2023. [cited 2023 October 19]. https://chat.openai.com/share/a5ae4acb-41a2-482d-8a97-1e07e59fcad5

Example without shareable URL:

#. Name of AI Tool [type of medium]. Creator of tool; version date. [Accessed YYYY Month DD]. See Appendix for text and prompt used.
1. ChatGPT. [Online conversation]. OpenAI; 2023. [cited 2023 October 19]. See Appendix for text generated and prompt used.

Example for AI generated images:

#. Name of AI Tool [type of medium]. Creator of tool; version date. [Accessed YYYY Month DD]. URL
2. Gemini. [image generation]. Google; 2025.[Accessed 2025 March 20]. https://gemini.google.com/app/a1a1a8faaf696475?hl=en-IN

References: