Guidelines on the use of GenAI

Acknowledging and referencing GenAI

For citations of GenAI, the Library has developed guidelines on acknowledging and referencing GenAI.

If you use it, GenAI must be acknowledged like any other source: if you take information and/or ideas from it, you should indicate this just as if you were taking them from a published article. If you take wording from GenAI, this should be acknowledged and in quotation marks. If you gave it multiple prompts, there should be multiple citations.

As with any other source, long strings of quoted matter are not advisable. Failure to provide such acknowledgments constitutes a breach of the College plagiarism policy.

The reader should be in no doubt as to where each piece of information in your work comes from. Markers will be on the lookout for suspect information and passages that demonstrate the particular weaknesses of generative AI. Incorrect and/or fabricated information will be penalised.

While properly referencing GenAI will protect you from plagiarism, it will not protect you from the errors which it generates. You would be well advised to independently verify information provided by GenAI. If you do this, it is advisable to quote directly from the sources you use for verification – you no longer need to quote GenAI itself.

Cover sheets

All assessed-work cover-sheets in the School will ask you to state whether you have used ‘artificial intelligence’ or not in producing the work.  This question must be answered over and above the provision of any references to such a source.  Answering this question incorrectly will be counted as a breach of academic integrity.

If you answer ‘yes’, you should include the full text provided by GenAI in an appendix to your work, so that the marker can see the full context (as they would be able to if you quoted a normal publication).

Unacknowledged/improper use and detection

In the event that markers suspect unacknowledged/improper use of GenAI, you may be called to an investigative meeting, where you will be examined on both the form and content of the work in question, and on the general topic. If the markers remain dissatisfied, they can escalate the case. It would then be treated as an academic integrity investigation, subject to the standard university guidelines.

Writing skills

A final point is that, precisely because a certain kind of (fairly low-level) writing can now be done by GenAI, future employers will no doubt be looking for humans whose capabilities in writing, research and argument go beyond those of GenAI tools. All the more reason, then, to properly hone these skills.

‘Artificial intelligence’ may prove to be a helpful tool in certain circumstances if used properly, but you should not allow it to stifle your curiosity or your determination to learn and grow as a student of Trinity College.
 

Updated July 2025.

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