BCOM 3950 - Business Communication and Professional Development: Writing and Citing

Most academic work draws upon the works of others; therefore, citing your sources is an important part of the scholarly writing process.

Citations include the key elements that allow your sources to be identified and located. These elements vary depending upon the type of resource.

There are several reasons to cite your sources:

• Give proper credit to the ideas, words, and works of others you use in your research
• Allow readers to find your sources - so they can determine if they are reliable, better evaluate your argument, and locate additional information
• Avoid plagiarism (see Georgia State University Academic Honesty Policy.)

Citation managers, or bibliographic management software, can save you hours by keeping track of your sources and formatting your bibliographies.

EndNote and EndNote Web are available at no cost to GSU students, faculty and staff. Zotero is available as a free Firefox plugin for anyone to download.

What are AI Tools? 

There are lots of AI Tools that can be used to increase productivity. Some AI Tools that you might have heard about are ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and Grammarly, but there are many, many more. There has been a lot of recent discussion around the use of AI Tools in the academic environment, how students should or shouldn't use them, and how to cite them properly in order to avoid plagiarism and other concerns. 

When do you need to cite an AI Tool?

Whenever you use the outputs of AI tools in your work you must cite them. Always cite if you use a direct quote or paraphrase from ChatGPT or another AI Tool. You must also cite when you use an AI tool for tasks like editing, translating, idea generation, and data processing. 

Citation concerns with AI Tools

1. You should always check the source material cited by AI Tools; this is because they can create fake citations and/or could be inaccurate
2. Be aware that there are privacy concerns when you use AI Tools and be careful what information you share to avoid unnecessary risks
3. Take notes about how you use AI Tools included in case you need to include those details in your citations. Remember, there are two reasons to cite your sources 1) to give credit to the author or creator and 2) to help others find the sources that you used

Source: 

McGuigan, N. (n.d.). LibGuides: Generative Artificial Intelligence : Citation and Attribution. Retrieved August 9, 2024, from https://libguides.brown.edu/c.php?g=1338928&p=9868287

Use software like Zotero and Endnote to manage your sources - download citations from library databases; export the bibliography into your paper. Compare the features of some different citation manager programs here.

Zotero is a freely available citation manager that easily saves citations from GIL and most library databases, as well as sites like Amazon and the New York Times online.

EndNote is a free download for GSU students, faculty and staff.  It's a desktop application that runs on Windows or MacOS.  Check out the EndNote Research Guide for video tutorials and usage guides. 

Mendeley is a free reference management tool that facilitates sharing and collaboration. 

All of these programs have Word plugins that automatically create bibliographies in the style of your choice.