Citation Information

APA stands for the American Psychological Association and is the format designed for use within the field of psychology. However, other disciplines use APA as well, so always use the format your professor chooses.

In addition to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition, the APA maintains its own website with multiple examples of how to format your paper and cite your sources. If you’re unable to find the answer to your question here, check the APA Manual 7th edition or the APA website.

Papers constructed according to APA guidelines generally include the following elements:

• Title Page
• Abstract
• Body
• Subsections within the body, with headings
• Tables and Figures
• References

In most cases, each of these elements will begin on a separate page, and it is important to note that not all academic papers will include all of these elements.

For specific types of reports, your subsections may need to be named with headings that reflect the type of report you are writing. For example, in reports on experiments or studies you’ll usually need to follow the IMRAD structure with Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion sections. Be sure to check with your instructor to determine what the expectations are for your paper.

APA 7th Edition Commonly Cited Sources

Books:

Single Author

Author’s Last name, Author’s First and Middle initials. (Year of publication). Title italicized. Publisher.

Larson, M. S. (1977). The rise of professionalism. University of California Press.

Multiple Authors (two to 20)

List up to 20 authors by their last names followed by initials. Use an ampersand (&) before the last author.

Rivano, N. S., Hoson, A., & Stallings, B. (2001). Regional integration and economic development. Palgrave.

Electronic Journal Articles:

Author’s Last name, Author’s First and Middle initials, & Last names and initials of other authors, if any. (Year). Title of article. Title of Journal italicized, Volume number italicized(Issue number), Page numbers. DOI

Herbst-Damm, K. L., & Kulik, J. A. (2005). Volunteer support, marital status, and the survival times of terminally ill patients. Health Psychology, 24(2), 225-229. https://doi.org/10.1037/027806133.24.2.225

A note about DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers): If a DOI is available, include it in the citation.  If a DOI is not available, include the url, except in cases where an articles comes from a database.  For database articles, do not include the url.

Websites:

Author (person or organization). (Date published or updated). Title of webpage italicized. Site Name. URL

Boyd, V. (2012, January 15). About Zora Neale Hurston. Zora Neale Hurston. http://zoranealehurston.com/about/

More Guidelines online:

• Excelsior OWL
• APA Online

MLA stands for the Modern Language Association, and its style guidelines have been assisting authors since 1951. In 2016, the MLA Handbook introduced a template using core elements in an effort to simplify much of the documentation process in MLA format. In 2021, the ninth edition was expanded with considerably more content and visuals.

MLA Formatting 9th Edition: The Basics

Papers constructed according to MLA guidelines should adhere to the following elements:

• Double-space all of the text of your paper (including entries within Works Cited).
• Use a clear font between 11 and 13 points. One example is Times New Roman font.
• Use one-inch margins on all sides and indent the first line of a paragraph one half-inch from the left margin.
• Add a running head in the upper right-hand corner with your last name, a space, and then a page number. Pages should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.), one-half inch from the top and flush with the right margin.
• List your name, your instructor’s name, the course, and the date double-spaced in the upper left-hand corner of the first page. This is your header. There is no cover page.
• Center the title on the next double-spaced line after the header.
• Provide in-text citations for all quoted, paraphrased, and summarized information in your paper.
• Include an alphabetized Works Cited page at the end of your paper that gives full bibliographic information for each item cited in your paper.
• If you use endnotes, include them on a separate page before your Works Cited page.

MLA guidelines do change over time, so it’s important to be aware of the most current information. As always, follow the requirements of your teacher or professor; their requirements take precedence.

Book, Single Author:

Last Name, First Name. Title of Book. Publisher, Publication Date.

Minot, Stephen. Three Genres. Pearson, 2003.

Journal Articles:

Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Journal, Volume, Issue, Year, pages.

Bagchi, Alaknanda. "Conflicting Nationalisms: The Voice of the Subaltern in Mahasweta Devi's Bashai Tudu." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, vol. 15, no. 1, 1996, pp. 41-50.

Electronic Journal Articles from databases:

If you are accessing a journal article from a database, you will need two containers to present the original publication information as well as the access information from the database. MLA requires a DOI (digital object identifier), permalink, or URL (in that order for preference) for online material.

Goldman, Anne. "Questions of Transport: Reading Primo Levi Reading Dante." The Georgia Review, vol. 64, no. 1, spring 2010, pp. 69-88. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41403188.

Websites:

It is a good idea to list your date of access because web postings are often updated, and information available on one date may no longer be available later. When using the URL, be sure to include the complete address for the site except for the https://.

Editor, author, or compiler name (if available). Name of Site. Version number, Name of institution/organization affiliated with the site (sponsor or publisher), date of resource creation (if available), URL, DOI or permalink. Date of access (if applicable).

Guidelines on the Web:

• Excelsior OWL
• MLA Style Center

Chicago-style citations utilize two distinct formats: the notes and bibliography format and the author-date format. Both formats usually include a separate bibliography page where all references are listed. Students should double-check with their instructors about which format is preferred.

Notes and bibliography: typically used in humanities classes like literature, art, and history. Sources are cited in the text with a raised numeral like this.¹ Each numeral corresponds to a footnote at the bottom of the page or an endnote at the end of the essay.

Author-date: does not use raised numerals, footnotes, or endnotes. Instead, the source author and the date of their publication are referenced directly in the text within parentheses as seen here (OWL 2023). The parenthetical reference should appear before the period in the appropriate sentence, except in cases of block quotations (five lines or longer) when the parenthetical reference comes after the quote’s terminal punctuation. Often, page numbers should be included as well and would be listed after a comma following the year of publication. For instance, if we were citing the last lines of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, where he talks about boats pressing on “against the current, borne ceaselessly into the past,” that citation would appear like so: (Fitzgerald 1925, 180). These citations correspond with the bibliography included on a separate page at the end of an essay.

Chicago 17th Edition

Print Book Single Author:

Last, First M. Book Title. City: Publisher, Year Published.

Elton, Geoffrey R. England Under the Tudors. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 1991.

EBook: Electronic books (e-books) are cited exactly as their print counterparts with the addition of a media marker at the end of the citation: Kindle, PDF, EPUB, etc.

Journal Articles: Notes and bibliographic entries for a journal include the following: full name of the author(s), article title, journal title, and issue information. Issue information refers to volume, issue number, month, year, and page number(s). For online works, retrieval information and the date of access are also included.

Last, First M., and First M. Last. “Article Title.” Journal Title, Series, Volume no. Issue (Month Date, Year Published): Page(s).

Schofield, John. "The Tudor House and Garden: Architecture and Landscape in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries." Sixteenth Century Journal 38.2 (Summer, 2007): 614-615.

Electronic Journal Articles:

Last, First M. “Article Title.” Journal Title, Series, Volume, no. Issue (Month Date, Year Published): Page(s). Accessed Month Date, Year. <URL>.

Marshall, Peter. “Forgery and Miracles in the Reign of Henry VIII.” Past & Present. 178 (February, 2003): 39-73. Accessed July 16, 2013. http://0-www.jstor.org.helin.uri.edu/stable/3600757.

Websites:

The title of a website that is analogous to a traditionally printed work but does not have (and never had) a printed counterpart can be treated like titles of other websites. For example, Wikipedia can be treated as a website, rather than as a conventional encyclopedia. This is a departure from previous editions of CMOS.

Last, First M. “Article Title.” Website Title. Month Date, Year Published [Date electronically published]. Accessed Month Date, Year [Date Accessed]. <URL>.

The Royal Household. “Henry VIII (r.1509-1547).” The official website of the British Monarchy. 2008/09. Accessed July 16, 2013.  http://www.royal.gov.uk/historyofthemonarchy/kingsandqueensofengland/thetudors/henryviii.aspx.

• Excelsior OWL
• Chicago Manual of Style
  • American Anthropological Association Style Guide

Other commonly used citation styles include:

• AMA (American Medical Association)
• CSE (Council of Science Editors)
• APSA (American Political Science Association)

Always remember that your professors are the ultimate authority on whether and how you're allowed to use generative AI in their classes. The information provided here doesn't supersede their instructions, so please always check with them before using AI in any of your work.

Generative AI Citations

Generative AIs may not be co-authors of articles, books, etc.  This is the current US copyright law, as well as the consensus of publishers and journal editors.  However, the contributions of AI, either directly as text in a document or indirectly as a source of ideas, should be cited like any other source. If you directly copy AI-generated text into a document, it must be included as a quote and cited, otherwise you are engaging in plagiarism.

APA Style (7th ed.)

Cite AI tools both in-text and in your references. The author is the company (e.g., OpenAI), and the version refers to the tool’s public release date (see How to Cite ChatGPT).

Reference Format:

Author. (Date). Name of tool (Version) [Large language model]. URL

Example:

OpenAI. (2025). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model].  https://chat.openai.com/chat

In-Text Citation:

(OpenAI, 2025)

Notes:
• If no Version date or number is included, as is currently the case with ChatGPT, you do not need to include this in the citation.
• Use the general URL, not a specific chat link. If your professor requests more detail, you may include a transcript or a unique chat URL in an appendix or footnote. For this reason, you should always save your chats and their URLs.

Chicago Style (17th ed.)

There is no official Chicago citation format for AI-generated content, but the Chicago Manual of Style FAQS recommends citing AI tools in numbered footnotes or endnotes, not in the bibliography or reference list.

General Footnote Format:

1. Name of AI tool, response to “[prompt],” creator of the tool, exact date of access.

Example:

1. ChatGPT, response to “Was Mark Antony all that good looking?,” OpenAI, August 8, 2025.

For Author-Date Citations (if required):

(Name of tool, exact date of access)

Example:

(ChatGPT, August 8, 2025)

MLA Style (9th ed.)

There is no official MLA format for citing AI sources; however, the following guidelines are recommended (MLA Style Center).

General MLA Format:
Author. Title of the Source. Title of the Container. Version. Publisher. Date. Location.

For an AI tool:

• Do not include an author.
• The title of the source is the prompt you entered, in quotation marks.
• The title of the container is the AI tool (e.g., ChatGPT).
• The version is the release date or number. (If no version is listed, as is currently the case with ChatGPT, you may omit this.)
• The publisher is the company that created the tool (e.g., OpenAI).
• The date is the exact date you generated the response.
• The location is the general URL of the tool.

Example – Works Cited:

“I bet Mark Antony was pretty ugly, right?,” prompt. ChatGPT, OpenAI, 5 Aug. 2025, https://chat.openai.com/chat.

In-Text Citation:

(“I bet Mark, 5 August, 2025”)

Note:
• Use the general URL, not a specific chat link. If your professor requests more detail, you may include a transcript or a unique chat URL in an appendix or footnote. For this reason, you should always save your chats and their URLs.