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AI : Referencing

General Overview

If, following guidance from your teacher/lecturer/programme team, it has been confirmed that you are able to utilise AI when developing your academic work, you will need to clearly indicate this within the work itself.  
This guide aims to support you in how to effectively ‘acknowledge’ or ‘reference’ generative AI content within your academic work.  Given the rate of generative AI tool development and acknowledging that a universal standard on how to reference them has not yet been met, this guidance will continue to be updated and is subject to change. 

How to Reference AI

At TMC and UCEN Manchester, different courses will use different referencing styles.  

You will likely be using one of the following styles:  

  • APA (7th Edition) referencing.   

  • Harvard ‘Cite Them Right’ referencing.  

  • OSCOLA referencing.  

If you are unsure which style of referencing you should follow for your course, please speak with your teacher/lecturer.  

Not all referencing styles have specific rules for citing and referencing AI currently, as such, this guidance is subject to change

Example Reference

When acknowledging use of AI tools, you would be expected to include the following information:  

  • Name and version of generative AI system (e.g. ChatGPT, version Mar 3). 

  • Publisher / Company that made the AI system (e.g. OpenAI).  

  • URL of AI system.  

  • Description of how the AI tool was used (e.g. proofreading assignment).   

  • Prompts used.  

  • Date you used the AI tool. 

For example:  

  • Within this assignment, I have used OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Mar 3 versionn (https://chat.openai.com), to complete background research using the following prompt "explain the difference between positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement when supporting classroom behaviour”.  

  • As part of this assignment’s development, I acknowledge the use of Open AI’s ChatGPT, Mar 14 version (https://chat.openai.com), to proofread the final draft of this assignment prior to submission.