Research Guides: Investigative Journalism: Citing Sources

Styles

AP Style-book This link opens in a new window
Associated Press style provides guidelines for news writing. Many newspapers, magazines and public relations offices across the United States use AP style. Although some publications such as the New York Times have developed their own style guidelines, a basic knowledge of AP style is considered essential to those who want to work in print journalism.
The 2019 edition of The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law includes more than 200 new or revised entries, with chapters covering data journalism, business, fashion, food, religion and sports terms, as well as media law, news values, punctuation, social media, polls and surveys and a new chapter on health and science. Access is for 25 concurrent users.

Professional honesty and courtesy: writers have an obligation to indicate when they have used someone else's ideas or words.
Citing sources strengthens the authority of your work. It demonstrates that you have engaged other thinking on the subject you are writing about.
Accurate citations help others locate the materials you used in your research.

First steps

Before submitting any work that has been aided or generated by generative AI, always check with your instructor whether tools like ChatGPT can be used for your assignment. If they can, double check to see whether your instructor has provided any guidelines on how the generative AI tools can be used
Make sure you always verify and evaluate the sources cited by generated AI tools, as generative AI tools can create fake or inaccurate citations

How to cite AI generated content

The following format is appropriate for attribution (although students must check with their instructors to ensure this is sufficient):

More information

Basic information about generative AI (including what generative AI is and what some examples of generative AI tools are)
Responsible use and best practices in using generative AI (including what to consider if you're going to be using a generative AI tool to create content for an assignment)
Avoiding plagiarism (including how to cite content created by generative AI)
Finding generative AI tools to use in research, teaching, and learning (including what to consider when picking a tool