"Prompt" prompt. Title of Container, Version, Publisher, Date, Location
Prompt: The prompt entered to generate the text. The prompt is in quotation marks followed by the word prompt.
Title of Container: The name of the AI product used.
Version: the version of the AI used. ChatGPT uses a date for their version, found at the bottom of the page.
Publisher: The name of the company that made the tool.
Date: The date the content was created.
Location: The URL for the chat.
Example (MLA uses hanging indents which cannot be created in this guide):
“Describe the theme of nature in Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park” prompt. ChatGPT, model GPT-4o, OpenAI, 23 Sept. 2024, chatgpt.com/share/66f1b0a0-d704-8000-be9a-85f53c850607.
Source: https://style.mla.org/citing-generative-ai-updated-revised/
Fig. x.. "Prompt" prompt. Title of Container, Version, Publisher, Date, Location
The caption under an image starts with Fig followed by the number of the figure.
Prompt: The prompt used to generate the text. The prompt is in quotation marks followed by the word prompt.
Title of Container: The name of the AI product used.
Version: The version of the AI used.
Publisher: The name of the company that made the tool.
Date: The date the content was created.
Location:The URL for the tool.
Example (MLA uses hanging indents which cannot be created in this guide):
Fig. 1. “Pointillist painting of a sheep in a sunny field of blue flowers” prompt, DALL-E, version 2, OpenAI, 8 Mar. 2023, labs.openai.com/.
Because AI "chats" are not retrievable by other readers, APA considers these chats more like personal communications. However, with AI-generated text there is not a person communicating, so APA considers the chat session more like sharing an algorithm's output. Credit is given to the author of the algorithm.
AI Company Name. (Date: year, month day). Title of chat in italics [Description, such as Generative AI chat]. Tool Name/Model. URL of the chat
AI Company Name: The author (creator) of the AI tool
Date: The year, month day of the chat
Title: The title of the chat
Description: Description of the interaction
Tool Name/Model: The AI tool used
URL: URL of the specific chat.
Example (APA uses hanging indents, which cannot be reproduced in this guide):
Google. (2025, May 22). High school grammar concepts overview [Generative AI chat]. Gemini 2.5 Flash. https://g.co/gemini/share/a1306ce12929
Source: https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/cite-generative-ai-references
Because AI-generated images are not retrievable by others, APA considers these images more like personal communications. However, with AI-generated images there is not a person creating the image, so APA considers the chat session more like sharing an algorithm's output. Credit is given to the author of the algorithm.
In Text:
Citations for images start with Fig. followed by the number of the figure. Describe the image and credit the Author (creator of the AI tool) and version of the tool.
Example:
Fig. 1. Image of robot holding a flower generated by Midjourney (2023).
Reference List:
Author. (Date). Title (Version) [Additional Description]. Source
Author: The author (creator) of the AI tool
Date: The year of the version used.
Title: The name of the tool (ex. ChatGPT or Bard)
Version: The version of the tool
Additional Description: APA suggests additional descriptions for non-common sources.
Source: Tool URL. Use the URL that links directly to the source, not the publisher's homepage.
Example (APA uses hanging indents, which cannot be reproduced in this guide):
Midjourney. (2023). Midjourney (V5) [Text-to-image model]. https://www.midjourney.com/