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Chicago Footnote Referencing - Theology students: Citing yourself and AI

This guide provides information on how to reference using the Chicago Footnote referencing style. PLEASE NOTE: counselling and education students should use APA referencing style.

Citing Yourself

In very rare cases you might need to quote a short section (no more than 2 sentences) of an assignment you have previously submitted. If this is the case, you should treat the quotation as you would any other source and correctly cite it.* You may also wish to refer to something you have published.

Note: if you have a required number of texts for a Bibliography, your own work does not contribute to this requirement.

Footnote

First name Family Name, "Title of Essay or Summary of Essay Question" (UNIT CODE Essay, Morling College, Year of assignment).

 

Bibliography

Family Name, First name. "Title of Essay or Summary of Essay Question." UNIT CODE Essay, Morling College, Year of assignment.

 

*If you are using EndNote, you will need to create a citation for material that is not formally published. Use “Thesis” as your Reference Type and  fill in the appropriate Fields:

  • Author
  • Year
  • Title (this could be the Assignment Question or a summary of the question)
  • University (this will most likely be Morling College but could be another institution)
  • Thesis Type (include the Unit Code [e.g. OT001] and the type of assignment [Essay, Reflection, Tutorial Paper, Book review etc.])

Citing AI-Generated Content

When citing information generated with the assistance of AI tools (such as ChatGPT, Smart Copy), be transparent about the involvement of AI in the work: provide credit to the source just as you would with other types of information.

For student papers and research articles, cite contributions from AI-generated tools in footnote form. You can also make reference in the body of your assignment text. You will need to include:

  • the creator of the content (e.g., ChatGPT, Smart Copy)
  • the text prompt you used to generate the content in quotation marks (if you included the prompt in the body of your text, you are not required to repeat the prompt in the footnote)
  • the organization or developer that created the tool (e.g., OpenAI, Unbounce)
  • the date the content was generated
  • if you have edited the AI-generated text, indicate this in either your footnote or the body of your text

At present (June 2023), the Chicago Manual of Style instructs you to cite content created by AI generative tools in the text of your assignment and/or in footnote form only (not in your bibliography).

In the case of ChatGPT, the URL provided within the footnote should be the unique URL created by a request to share the conversation that you had, including all of your requests and all of the ChatGPT response. If you initiated more than one conversation thread, the unique URL for each conversation thread should be provided.  

If you obtained AI-enabled editorial assistance through a platform that does not provide the option of creating a URL to share a log of your interaction(s) with the site, you should still acknowledge your use of the application via a footnote at an appropriate point in the assignment, and retain a copy of the pre-edited draft of the assignment that you can provide, if requested, for comparison purposes.

In some cases, it may be appropriate to include a transcript of an AI chat or prompt situation in an appendix. If you are not sure about using AI in an assignment, please contact your lecturer.

Footnote

Originator of the communication, medium, Day Month, Year: URL [where available]

1 OpenAI's ChatGPT AI language model, responses to questions from author, 28 June, 2023: https://chat.openai.com/share/c2f86c07-43a9-4326-ac9e-a95d9834568b

 

In-Text Examples

The following recipe for vegetarian pakoras was generated by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, June 2, 2023.

When asked to list three key marketing strategies for websites, Unbounce’s AI-generator, Smart Copy, indicated that the use of SEO, understanding user experience, and social media engagement were all important methods (edited for style and content).

© 2016 Morling College. Morling College is an affiliated institution with the Australian College of Theology (CRICOS Provider 02650E). Morling College Counselling (CRICOS Provider 03265F).