Subject Guides: AI in Healthcare: Acknowledgement and Citing of AI

Acknowledgement and Citing of AI

Acknowledge your use of generative AI
If you use generative AI to help you generate ideas or plan your process, you should still acknowledge how you used the tool, even if you don’t include any AI generated content.

Provide a description of the AI tool used, what you did and the date accessed.

Save a copy of the transcript of your questions and responses from the generative AI tool. This can be done by taking a screenshot or saving a webpage file.

Example of acknowledgement:

I acknowledge the use of the [INSERT TOOL NAME] from [INSERT DEVELOPER NAME (INSERT LINK TO TOOL)]The prompts used include [list of prompts]. The following prompts were entered into [INSERT TOOL NAME] on [INSERT DATE]:

Citing generative AI for publication
Different publishers are taking different approaches to whether generative AI is allowed.

If you are writing for publication, you should check the publisher's information for authors.

Generative AI in Scholarly Communications
The paper looks at the ethical, legal, and practical aspects of GenAI, highlighting its potential to transform scholarly communications, and covers a range of topics from intellectual property rights to the challenges of maintaining integrity in the digital age. The paper provides best-practice principles and recommendations for authors, editorial teams, reviewers, and vendors, ensuring a responsible and ethical approach to the use of GenAI tools.

Recommendations for a Classification of AI Use in Academic Manuscript Preparation
This document presents a classification of various ways that artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to assist in the preparation of academic manuscripts. It is intended to serve as a framework for publishers to individually develop policies on how AI may be used and should be declared by authors. Publishers are encouraged to consider whether declarations by authors may be needed at the submission stage, as well as whether declarations should be included in a manuscript and final publication in accordance with their own guidelines and policies. This classification was developed by the STM Association Task and Finish Group on AI Labelling Terminology for Research Content Declaration.

APA

In-text
Author of generative AI model, Year of version used

Example:

(OpenAI, 2022)

OpenAI (2022)

Reference list
Author of AI model used. (Year of AI model used). Name of AI model used (Version of AI model used) [Type or description of AI model used]. Web address of AI model used

Example:

OpenAI. (2022). ChatGPT (Dec 20 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/

The full transcript of a response can be included in an appendix or other supplementary materials.

Visit How to cite ChatGPT for more information.

See the blogpost for APA Style guidance

MLA

For examples and additional information see MLA Style Guidance

Author
MLA recommends that you do not treat the AI tool as an author.

Title of Source
Describe what was generated by the AI tool. This may involve including information about the prompt in the Title of Source element if you have not done so in the text.

Title of Container
Use the Title of Container element to name the AI tool (e.g., ChatGPT).

Version
Name the specific AI model or model version as specifically as possible. For instance, the examples in this post were developed using the GPT-4o model of ChatGPT.

Publisher
Name the company that made the tool.

Date
Give the date the content was generated.

Location
Give the stable, shareable URL for accessing the generated content (e.g., text, an image, etc.). For example, tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E allow you to share a link by clicking the Share link at the top of the chat conversation. If the tool you are using doesn’t provide a stable, shareable URL, provide the general URL for the tool.

Example

“Explain the significance of DNA in modern forensic science” prompt.
ChatGPT, model GPT-4o, OpenAI, 15 Aug. 2025, chatgpt.com/share/example-link.

Title of Source: The description of the prompt used (“Explain the significance of DNA in modern forensic science” prompt).
Title of Container: The name of the AI tool (ChatGPT).
Version: The model name or number (model GPT-4o).
Publisher: The name of the company (OpenAI).
Date: The exact date the content was generated (15 Aug. 2025).
Location: The stable, shareable URL to the specific chat or, if unavailable, the general URL of the tool (here, a placeholder example link is given)

Note: Prompt example developed using Perplexity