AI and Referencing - AI | Artificial Intelligence - LibGuides at Wellington Institute of Technology

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Open GenAI tools scrape the internet and may be trained on data that is licensed (online library resources) or copyrighted. This means they could produce work that is copied without permission or any acknowledgement to the creator or copyright holder and therefore are committing plagiarism. Please see the library Copyright guide: AI and Copyright for more information.
You cannot rely on GenAI to create original work or have information that is accurate. ChatGPT has been known to create information and make up references that do not exist. This is known as hallucination. It is best to use reliable sources accessed through the library.
The Whitireia/WelTec Academic Integrity Procedures state in 2.2 that students are required to submit their own work while being transparent about any AI contributions and to avoid plagiarism by not submitting an assessment written by someone else, or soley by AI (3.3c).
Tools such as ChatGPT, Grammarly, Quillbot etc may be picked up as AI by Turnitin.
The School of Health states you need to disclose the use of AI tools, adding a brief statement saying how you have used them i.e. in the writing or editing of your assignments. Check with your kaiako/tutor to see if they have any guidelines on AI use before starting your assignment.
Some library databases are now incorporating AI tools which act as research assistants. If you have used AI tools to help produce information, create a paraphrase, or you have quoted from ChatGPT, AI-powered research assistants or any other software, you need to include an in-text citation and reference list entry. If you are citing an AI summary based on a document, you should also cite the document the AI summary is based on. If you choose to use AI tools, check out the AI Guide.
Information generated by Artificial Intelligence software (AI) such as ChatGPT, is referenced as computer software. The “Chat” from ChatGPT is like sharing an algorithm output. See examples below.

In Your Assignment

Describe how you used the tool
Provide the prompts you used and the output given. This makes it clear how you have used the AI tool
As the results are not retrievable, you cannot include a page number, paragraph number or timestamp
You may consider including the full text of long responses in an appendix, so readers have access to the exact text generated. This is because a unique response will be generated in each chat session, even if the same prompts are used
See AI and Assignments
See the APA Style Blog for more information

How to Reference ChatGPT

In-Text Citation

OpenAI's (2023) ChatGPT-generated text responded to the following prompt, " …" with this "...".

The ChatGPT-generated text indicated that … (OpenAI, 2023).

Reference list entry

Author. (Date). Title (Version) [Description]. URL

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

Author: This is the name of the company/group responsible for the software
Date: The year of the version used
Title: The name of the model used, in italics. The version number is after the title in round brackets. This could be the date (see the example) or a version number (e.g. Version 1.2). Add a description in square brackets so your reader knows what kind of model is being cited
Source: When the publisher name and the author name are the same, do not repeat the publisher name in the source element. Use the URL that links as directly as possible to the source (i.e. the page where you can access the model)

How to Reference ProQuest Research Assistant

OpenAI (2025) generated the following response when ...

The ProQuest research assistant summaries the following points ... (OpenAI, 2025).

Reference list entry

OpenAI. (2025). ProQuest research assistant (GPT-40 mini version) [Large language model]. https://www.proquest.com

How to Reference Copilot for Microsoft 365

In-text Citation

Microsoft (2025) generated the following text "..."

When prompted with "..." the generated text emphasised the "..." (Microsoft, 2025; see Appendix A for the full transcript).

Reference list entry

Microsoft. (2025). Copilot for Microsoft 365 (GPT4) [Large language model]. https://copilot.microsoft.com

How to Reference Grammarly

In-text Citation

According to Grammarly (2024)…

… (Grammarly, 2024).

Reference list entry

Author. (Date). Title (Version) [Description]. URL

Grammarly. (2024). Grammarly (Version 1.2.78.1397) [Large language model]. https://www.grammarly.com/

Author: The name of the company/group responsible for the software
Date: The year of the version used (Google the version number to find the release date)
Title: The name of the model used, in italics. The version number is after the title in round brackets (The version number is found in Settings). Add a description in square brackets so your reader knows what kind of model is being cited
Source: When the publisher name and the author name are the same, do not repeat the publisher name in the source element. Use the URL that links as directly as possible to the source (i.e. the page where you can access the model). This will depend on whether you have used the app version or online version of Grammarly

How to Reference Quillbot

In-text citation

Quillbot (2023) ...

... (Quillbot, 2023).

Reference list entry

Author. (Date). Title (Version) [Description]. URL

Quillbot. (2023). Quillbot (Version 15.179.0) [Large language model]. https://quillbot.com/

Author: This is the name of the company/group responsible for the software
Date: The year of the version used
Title: The name of the model used, in italics. The version number is after the title in round brackets. Add a description in square brackets so your reader knows what kind of model is being cited
Source: When the publisher name and the author name are the same, do not repeat the publisher name in the source element. Use the URL that links as directly as possible to the source (i.e. the page where you can access the model)

More Information

AI Guide
APA Style Blog How to cite ChatGPT
Introduction to APA Referencing Guide
Plagiarism
Avoid Plagiarism Guide from the American Psychological Association (APA)
A student guide on Rights and Responsibilities. Go to Taikura for the Academic Integrity Procedures. See no. 3 Academic Misconduct for information on plagiarism and submitting assessments written by someone else and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Copyright Guide. See the Copyright for Students and Researchers tab. It states you must always acknowledge where you obtained information from
Read the terms and conditions of library databases to see if there are any restrictions on the use of AI with their product