Harvard

UCL's general approach to referencing generative AI stipulates AI systems should not be cited as an author nor included as a source in the reference list, but use of generative AI must be acknowledged in an ‘Acknowledgements’ section of any piece of academic work where it has been used as a functional tool to assist in the process of creating academic work. 

There may be cases where it is appropriate or necessary for a student or researcher to refer to AI generated output within a piece of work and / or include it in a reference list, e.g. where the piece of work addresses the topic of generative AI and discussion around outputs, where there is reference to a formally published output generated by AI, where it is required by the academic department, or where a student has not identified a primary source of the information despite the issues with relying on generative AI as a secondary source of information (which may be considered poor academic practice). Students are advised to check with their department.

In such cases, the output should be treated as a work with no author, unless specified otherwise by departmental guidelines and based on the ‘Personal communication’ reference type.

To be made up of:

• Title of source: Describe what was generated by the AI tool. This may be the prompt used.
• Year generated (in round brackets).
• AI tool and version.
• Day/month of communication.
• Link to conversation or output (where available).

In-text citation 

(Explain why the sky is blue, 2024)

Reference list:

Explain why the sky is blue (2024). ChatGPT (GPT-4). 8 July. Available at: https://chatgpt.com/share/2808d9f2-18c3-4aed-a84e-02e0d670eff1