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APA Referencing (APA 7th edition)

This guide shows students and staff how to reference using the APA Referencing style.

General rules

When using Artifical Intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGTP, you should follow Box Hill Institute's guidelines on Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and your teacher's instructions. Instructions may vary for different assignments so check with your teacher if you have any doubt about what's okay. Using AI when it's not permitted and failing to reference your use of AI appropriately are both likely to be considered academic misconduct and academic penalties may apply. 

In-Text Citations

  • In-text citations follow the same basic format for all resources - include the author of the work and the year in the body of your work.
  • In the case of an AI tool, the author (which will often be a company) is what you include in your citation, with the name of the actual tool included in the reference list entry.
  • It's also recommended that you include details of the prompt or prompts you gave the AI tool.
  • For more information on in-text citations, refer to the In-text citations page of this guide.

Examples of in-text citations for an AI tool:

When prompted with the question: "Explain the benefits of academic libraries", OpenAI (2023) returned a long list...

OR

When prompted to "explain the benefits of academic libraries", a long list was generated by the tool (OpenAI, 2023).

Reference Lists

Make sure to include the four elements needed: author (of the AI tool used), date (year only), title of the AI tool followed by version name or number in round brackets, and the source (publisher and URL of the tool). When the author and publisher are the same, only include the URL.

Note that the bracketed text after the title and version is included "to help a reader understand what’s being cited" (McAdoo, 2023), and that the wording may change with different versions of AI tools.

Example:

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (May 12 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

Reference List for this advice

McAdoo, T. (2023, Apr 7). How to cite ChatGPT. APA Style Blog. https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/how-to-cite-chatgpt