Chicago Footnote Referencing - Theology Students

Recent improvements in chatbots and AI content creators have raised significant ethical questions around intellectual property, copyright and academic integrity.

The ACT Academic Integrity Policy states that "the use of artificial intelligence tools (including, but not limited to, ChatGPT or similar), in any assessment task, including project or thesis" is a form of academic misconduct. There are two exceptions to this rule:

1. where the use of the tool is for preliminary research on a topic, in which case the use of the tool including its name must be acknowledged.
2. In the case where a lecturer provides written authorisation for the use of an artificial intelligence tool for any other aspects of an assessment task, in which case any student use must be fully referenced.

If you are in any doubt as to whether the use that you are planning to make of an AI-enabled software application or website falls within the category of “preliminary research” you should contact the lecturer to check.

Another authorised use of AI, in all assignments, is to provide the kind of editorial assistance that can be provided by a “fellow student, friend, family member etc”:

It is appropriate for a student to ask a fellow student, friend or family member to:

• complete a basic edit/review of an assignment; highlighting common spelling or grammatical errors, structural problems, problems with referencing or formatting
• provide some guidance on vocabulary and translation, especially for NESB students

Assistance of this sort may be obtained through the use of AI-enabled applications such as ChatGPT, Grammarly or GrammarlyGo, provided any use of AI for this purpose is fully referenced, as set out in our Chicago and APA referencing guides.

Other permissible uses of AI may be authorised within the written instructions provided to students for particular assignments, and should be similarly referenced.

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.

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

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).

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.])