How to cite a generative AI prompt

Bluebook (22d ed.) citation format · B18 / R18.3 · Internet & electronic

Example

Luke Cronin, Google Gemini Advanced, “Who would make a better Supreme Court Justice: Beyoncé or Taylor Swift?” (Mar. 29, 2024) (on file with the Columbia Law Review).

What the citation needs

Required

On file with — Where a reader can get an unpublished or hard-to-find source: what follows “on file with” — “author”, or the library or journal holding it (R17.1).

When they apply

Person who ran the prompt — The author’s full name as it appears on the publication (R15.1; R16.2).
Model — The model, as it appears on the source.
Prompt — The prompt, as it appears on the source.
Date — The date the rule for this source calls for, with the month abbreviated per T12 (“Nov. 24, 1978”).

In a brief and in a law review

The Bluebook sets citations two ways: the Bluepages for court documents and legal memoranda, the Whitepages for law review footnotes. Here is the first example above as each one prints it, in its typeface.

Court documents (Bluepages)

Luke Cronin, Google Gemini Advanced, “Who would make a better Supreme Court Justice: Beyoncé or Taylor Swift?” (Mar. 29, 2024) (on file with the Columbia Law Review).

Law review footnotes (Whitepages)

Luke Cronin, Google Gemini Advanced, “Who would make a better Supreme Court Justice: Beyoncé or Taylor Swift?” (Mar. 29, 2024) (on file with the Columbia Law Review).

For this source the two are set the same way.

Common mistakes

Each of these is a citation the checker refuses, with what it says is wrong and the corrected form.

Wrong

Luke Cronin, Gemini Advanced, “Who would make a better Supreme Court Justice: Beyoncé or Taylor Swift?” (Mar. 29, 2024), https://g.co/gemini/share/425174222688.

Why

Rule 18.3(a): a URL will no longer suffice for a model output — save it as a PDF and cite where it is on file.

Rule 18.3(a) requires saving the output as a PDF and citing where it is stored, e.g. “(on file with the Columbia Law Review)”.

Right

Luke Cronin, Google Gemini Advanced, “Who would make a better Supreme Court Justice: Beyoncé or Taylor Swift?” (Mar. 29, 2024) (on file with the Columbia Law Review).

Governing rules

B18 / R18.3

18 — the internet, electronic media & other nonprint resources.
18.3 — AI-generated content; outputs are archived, not linked.

Build this citation with the generator, check one you have already written, or paste a whole list of footnotes to check them in order.

Related source types

Internet & electronic: