Course guide: using and citing AI
By Adam Hogan. Last updated September 18, 2026.
If an assignment allows AI, you may use it, on two conditions. First, you do the thinking; AI only helps. Second, you show me how you used it by citing it and sharing your chat.
This page shows you how, step by step. It takes about 10 minutes to read, and you can come back to it any time.
"The unexamined life is not worth living."
Socrates, in Plato's Apology
What a finished AI citation looks like on your References page:
References
OpenAI.1 (2026, September 14).2 Plato's allegory of the cave explained3 [Generative AI chat]. ChatGPT. https://chatgpt.com/share/your-link-here4
1 The company that makes the AI
2 The date you had the chat
3 The chat's title, in italics
4 The share link to your chat
If you remember nothing else, remember these four things.
Do your own thinking
Read and form your view first. Use AI to test your ideas, not to create them.
Share the chat
Share a link to the full conversation, or upload a copy, so I can see it.
Cite it
Add it to your References and cite it in your work wherever you used it.
Explain it
Write two or three sentences on how you used AI.
The big question isn't whether you used AI. It's who did the thinking: you or the AI.
Researchers Ouyang and Jiao (2021) sorted AI use into three levels: AI-directed, AI-supported, and AI-empowered. Below, each level is described in plain language, with its research name underneath.
Not allowed
The AI does the work
Called AI-directed
Looks like:
Okay as a starting point
The AI helps you
Called AI-supported
Looks like:
The goal
You lead, the AI tests you
Called AI-empowered
Looks like:
Every assignment has an AI label
Check the label before you start. "The AI does the work" is never allowed, whatever the label says.
No AIDon't use AI for any part of this assignment.
AI allowedAI may help you, and you should aim to lead. Cite it.
Lead with AIThe assignment asks you to use AI as the one in charge. Cite it.
Philosophy is a skill, like playing an instrument. You get better by doing it yourself: reading closely, laying out arguments, finding objections, and defending your view. If AI does those parts, you turn in work but don't build the skill. That's why "the AI does the work" isn't allowed.
It's fine to start at "the AI helps you." Just keep moving toward leading the conversation yourself. Think of AI as a sharp classmate you argue with, not someone whose homework you copy.
Educational psychologist Gavriel Salomon and his colleagues (Salomon et al., 1991) pointed out that a tool can affect you in two different ways. Think of GPS: it gets you to the right place every time, but you may never learn the route.
What you can do with AI
How well you and the AI do together, while you're using it. A paper written with heavy AI help can look strong, but that strength belongs to the team of you plus the AI. Close the chat and it may disappear.
What you can do after AI
The skills and understanding that stay with you once the chat is closed. This is what the course is building.
Their key point: the lasting benefit comes when you stay mentally engaged in the thinking. If the AI does the work, your work may look better, but you don't get better.
Did I do the reading and form my own view before asking AI?
Could I explain every point in my work with the chat closed?
Did I question what the AI said, or just accept it?
If you answered no to any of these, go back and do that part yourself before you submit.
The rule of thumb: if the ideas or most of the words came from the AI, the AI did the work.
AI makes your outline. Organizing your ideas is part of the thinking. Make your own outline first, then ask AI to critique it.
AI "improves the flow." Small fixes to a sentence or two are light copy editing. More than that, cite it. If it rewrites whole paragraphs, the words are now the AI's: ask it to point out problems instead, then fix them yourself.
AI polishes your English. Fixing grammar and word choice in a sentence or two you wrote is light copy editing, so no citation. If it polishes more than that, or adds any ideas, cite it.
AI translates your writing. If you wrote in another language and AI translated it, cite it. Check the translation carefully, since meaning can shift.
You have an approved accommodation. Your accommodation comes first. Talk with me so we can make sure this guide works for you.
Still not sure? Ask me before you submit.
Ouyang and Jiao (2021) describe three paradigms of AI in education: AI-directed (the learner as recipient), AI-supported (the learner as collaborator), and AI-empowered (the learner as leader). They see the empowered paradigm as where AI in education should go. They wrote about AI in education in general; this course applies their ideas to how you use chat tools.
UNESCO's guidance on AI in education calls for an approach that keeps people, not tools, in charge of learning (Miao & Holmes, 2023).
The APA Style team points to early research finding that people who used ChatGPT to write essays remembered less of what they wrote and felt less ownership of it (Kosmyna et al., 2025, as cited in McAdoo et al., 2025c). APA also warns that AI tends to build an argument for whatever you ask, even when the connection is weak (McAdoo et al., 2025c).
The light copy editing rule follows publishers such as Springer Nature, which don't require authors to disclose AI used only to fix the grammar, spelling, and readability of text they wrote themselves, as long as the AI adds no new content (Springer Nature, n.d.).
Salomon et al. (1991) called the two kinds of effect "effects with" and "effects of" a technology. On this page, "after AI" means the same thing as their "effects of."
Any time you use AI, like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, or Perplexity, for an assignment. The one exception is light copy editing, explained below.
When you cite AI, you must always show me the chat. Share a link to it, or upload a copy if you'd rather keep it private (see Step 1). APA style doesn't always require this, but this course does.
Cite it if you used AI to
Explain a reading, idea, or argument
Brainstorm topics, objections, or examples
Write or suggest any wording, summary, or outline you used
Give feedback on your writing, or edit more than a sentence or two
Write, rewrite, or summarize anything, even when the AI is built into another program, like Copilot in Word or an AI summary in a PDF reader
No need to cite
Light copy editing: fixing spelling, grammar, punctuation, or word choice in a sentence or two you wrote, with no new ideas added. This is true in any tool, including ChatGPT or Word.
Using AI only to find sources, like a search engine. Cite the sources themselves, after you open and read them.
But if the AI explained or summarized those sources for you, cite the chat.
Three things to know
How to cite AI in three steps
Step 1
A share link lets me open your whole conversation. Make it after you finish chatting. If you keep chatting later, make a new link.
Include every chat you used for the assignment, in any tool, not just the main one.
I read a sample of chats for each assignment, plus any chat when an assignment or AI use statement raises a question.
Where to find it
ChatGPT: click Share at the top of the chat, then copy the link.
Claude: click Share at the top right, then copy the link.
Gemini: open the share option and create a public link.
Other tools: look for a Share button near the top of the chat.
Can't find it? Search the tool's help pages for "share conversation."
Before you submit the link
Test it. Open it in a private or incognito window. If it asks you to log in, I can't see it either.
Keep it clean. Anyone with the link can read the chat, so start a fresh chat for coursework and leave out anything personal. If a tool offers to make your chat searchable or discoverable, leave that off. The link shows only that one chat, not your other chats or their titles.
Don't delete the chat until final grades are posted, or the link may stop working.
Rather keep the chat private, or can't share it? Save the whole conversation, including what you typed, as a PDF or copy it into a document. Upload it with your assignment in Blackboard, or add it as an appendix at the end of your work. See "Special cases" in Step 2 for how to cite it.
Step 2
Each chat you used gets its own entry. Fill in this pattern:
Company. (Year, Month Day). Title of the chat [Generative AI chat]. Tool name. Share link
Company: who makes the tool. ChatGPT is OpenAI, Claude is Anthropic, Gemini is Google, Copilot is Microsoft.
Date: the day you had the chat.
Title: the chat's name, in italics. Capitalize only the first word and names. Most tools let you rename a chat, so give it a clear title first.
[Generative AI chat]: type this exactly, with the square brackets.
Tool name: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and so on. If the tool shows a specific model name, you can use that instead.
Share link: the link from Step 1, not the address in your browser bar.
Put it in alphabetical order with your other sources, using the same formatting: double spaced, with a hanging indent (the first line starts at the margin and the lines after it are indented, like the sample at the top of this page).
Two chats with the same tool in the same year
Add "a" and "b" after the year, with the earlier chat getting "a": OpenAI. (2026a, September 14). and OpenAI. (2026b, October 3). Use the same letters in your work: (OpenAI, 2026a).
No share link (private or uploaded copy)
Cite the tool itself: OpenAI. (2026). ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chatgpt.com/ Use the year the tool was last updated. Then upload the full chat or add it as an appendix, as described in Step 1.
Step 3
In the sentence where the AI helped, add the company and year. There are two ways to write it:
In parentheses at the end:
(OpenAI, 2026)
As part of the sentence:
Anthropic (2026) suggested...
Say what the AI did, in plain words
Before rereading Book VII of the Republic, I used ChatGPT (OpenAI, 2026) to explain the allegory of the cave, then checked its account against the text. Claude (Anthropic, 2026) suggested two objections to Mill's harm principle; I develop the second one below.
Not a paper? For a discussion post, presentation, or project, cite it the same way: in the text or on the slide where the AI helped, plus an entry in your References.
Quoting the AI? Put its exact words in quotation marks and add the citation. Keep AI quotes rare and short.
AI is not a source for what philosophers said. If you write "Kant argues...", cite Kant's text, not the chat. The AI citation only shows how the tool helped you.
If you used AI, add a short statement at the end of your work, right before your References. It tells me what you used, what for, and what you did with it. APA asks writers to describe how they used AI; this statement is how this course asks you to do it.
Used more than one chat? Add a sentence and a link for each. Didn't use AI? Skip this.
Template: copy this and fill in the brackets
AI Use Statement
I used [tool] on [date] to [what you used it for]. I [what you did with it: kept, changed, rejected, or checked it]. The full conversation is available at [share link] (or: is uploaded with this assignment).
Example
AI Use Statement
I used ChatGPT on September 14, 2026, to explain the allegory of the cave and to check my summary of it. I compared its explanation with Book VII of the Republic and corrected one point it got wrong about the divided line. The full conversation is available at https://chatgpt.com/share/your-link-here.
Listing "ChatGPT" as the author
Instead: List the company that makes it: OpenAI.
Using the web address from your browser bar
Instead: Use the share link. The address in your browser bar only works for you.
Using an older format you found online, like "ChatGPT (Mar 14 version)"
Instead: Use the pattern in Step 2. APA updated its rules in September 2025.
Citing the chat as proof of what a philosopher said
Instead: Cite the philosopher's own text.
Deleting the chat after you submit
Instead: Keep it until final grades are posted.
Not sure about something? Ask me before the due date. Asking is always better than guessing, and it will never count against you.
I checked this assignment's AI label
I did my own thinking, and could explain my work with the chat closed
Every chat I used is in my References, with a share link I tested or an uploaded copy
I cited the AI in my work everywhere I used it
I added my AI use statement before my References
I follow the same rules I'm asking you to follow. Here is my AI use statement.
AI Use Statement
I used Claude Opus 5 (Anthropic, 2026) on September 18, 2026, to research APA's current guidance on citing AI, draft the text of this guide, and design and code this page. I chose the approach, the framework, and the course rules; checked the citation rules against APA's own posts; and revised the wording.
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000
Anthropic. (2026). Claude Opus 5 [Large language model]. https://claude.ai/
McAdoo, T., Denneny, S., & Lee, C. (2025a, September 9). Citing generative AI in APA Style: Part 1: Reference formats. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/cite-generative-ai-references
McAdoo, T., Denneny, S., & Lee, C. (2025b, September 9). Citing generative AI in APA Style: Part 2: AI as a search engine and AI integrated into common software. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/cite-generative-ai-search-software
McAdoo, T., Denneny, S., & Lee, C. (2025c, September 9). Citing generative AI in APA Style: Part 3: Is AI "allowed" in APA Style? APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/cite-generative-ai-allowed
Miao, F., & Holmes, W. (2023). Guidance for generative AI in education and research. UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000386693
Ouyang, F., & Jiao, P. (2021). Artificial intelligence in education: The three paradigms. Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence, 2, Article 100020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2021.100020
Salomon, G., Perkins, D. N., & Globerson, T. (1991). Partners in cognition: Extending human intelligence with intelligent technologies. Educational Researcher, 20(3), 2–9. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X020003002
Springer Nature. (n.d.). Artificial intelligence (AI). Retrieved September 18, 2026, from https://www.springer.com/de/editorial-policies/artificial-intelligence--ai-/25428500