8.3 Referring to LLMs, Authors, and Titles

Writing in academic and business contexts often entails writing about or responding to the words and ideas of other authors and speakers. With the increasing use of LLMs in the creation of content, professionals now must also engage ethically with that material. College writing is often a “dialogue” or conversation between students and their professors, so it is a good way to practice skills you will use in the workplace. Research conducted for courses generally builds on or reacts to the work of previous scholars. As student writers, you often use the works of published authors to support your arguments or provide a framework for your analysis. When you do this, you must cite and document your sources; you may also need to identify the author and title that you are referring to in the text. Here below are some basic conventions (rules) to follow when you refer to sources in the text.  For examples of References entries, please go to Citing and Documenting Sources.

Referring to LLMs

If you are integrating content from LLM output, how you indicate the source will depend on your degree of separation (see Chapter 2.6 Workflow and GenAI Co-Creation) from the output you are using:

• Have you engaged significantly in a co-creative process involved in reiterative prompting and significant revisions of the output before use?
• Are you making use of LLM output as is?
• Have you corroborated statements and citations included in the LLM output prior to use?

Each of these questions reveals use cases that have their own implications for how you go about acknowledging LLM output use in your documents (refer to Table 8.2.1 in Chapter 8.2 Integrating Evidence into Your Writing). The complicating factor is that while genAI applications are being used routinely in the workplace, draft output is often created with prompts that contain contextual information and reference documents provided by the user or culled from the enterprise knowledge graph (sources). Most output is then revised and rewritten before adding it to documents. Traditional citation practices become problematic because the output often consists of LLM content and organizational information combined with revisions created by the user.

A complex workflow would involve the use of LLM and other genAI application at various points as needed throughout the workflow involved in completing a complex series of tasks, such as when creating a lengthy formal report.

A. General Declaration: Create a comprehensive statement of genAI or LLM use that covers the range of use in creating the final deliverable and place it in the Credits section in the front matter of a longer document.

Example: Copilot and research applications were used to support the workflow for creating this final report. Various prompting strategies from September 1 to December 1, 2024 were employed to obtain research information, summarize key articles, and review outlines, and draft the report. At times, Copilot was called on to assist in revising paragraphs. The final, revised draft was reviewed by Copilot and its suggested improvements were incorporated into the finished report.

Whether you declare or cite usage depends on where the cognitive load resides.

B. Specific Methods for In-Text Notations:

• Human-Leaning Cognitive Load:  In cases when you have extensively revised output and essentially made it your own, declare your use.
• LLM-Leaning Cognitive Load:  When you make use of output as is or with few revisions, include a citation: e.g.,  (Microsoft Copilot, 2025); quote small segments used as is.
• Traditional Citation (see below): When you are using output material that is obviously obtained from verifiable sources and you have gone to the source to corroborate information and statements and they are accurate, cite the original source and declare LLM use: e.g., (Potter, 2024 via Microsoft Copilot, 2025)
• For Images: Create a citation for images (Seneca Libraries, n.d.): e.g., (Adobe Firefly, 2025); (Microsoft, 2025)

For more information on citing and documenting LLM content, see the Seneca Libraries Citation Guide (APA).

Referring to Authors

(Citing Sources with More than One Author, 2021)

The first time that you mention the author, use the full name (but no titles, such as Mr. Ms, or Dr.). If there are more than three authors, use the Latin abbreviated term “et al.” to refer to additional authors. APA Style requires that you also include the publication date:

• William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet in 1601.
• Sean Petty and Justin Trudeau (2008) argue that …
• Ross Phillips et al. (2011) recommend that….

Every time you refer to the author after the first time, use the last name only. Never refer to the author by the first name (William or Will) only. Always use the last name:

• Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most studied plays.
• Petty and Trudeau (2008) go on to describe the effects of …
• Phillips et al. (2011) suggest that….

Referring to Titles

When referring to titles, there are two distinct methods to indicate two types of works:

1. APA Style requires that the titles of shorter works that are published within a larger work (an article in a newspaper, an academic article in a periodical, a chapter in a book) be noted without quotation marks or italics in a list of references, but with quotation marks or italics when mentioned in the text. A larger, stand-alone work, like a book, is italicized in both cases.  Do not capitalize the titles in the list of references. Titles of webpages are italicized. See examples below:
   • “The Case Against Bottled Water” is an editorial written by Justin Trudeau and Sean Petty, published in The Star, a Toronto newspaper (2008).
   • “People For Sale,” a magazine article published in The Utne Reader, is written by E. Benjamin Skinner (2008).
   • “Bottled Water: The Pure Commodity in the Age of Branding” is an academic journal article by Richard Wilk, published in the Journal of Consumer Culture (2006).
   • Reference Examples (2020) can be found on the APA Style website.

2. When referring to titles of larger works, or works that have smaller articles published within them (books, newspapers, magazines, periodicals, movies, novels, etc.), use italics* except for website titles, which are capitalized only:

• Trudeau and Petty’s 2008 article was published in The Star, a Toronto newspaper.
• Skinner published his article in The Utne Reader, an alternative magazine.
• Phillips et al. published their academic article, “Risk compensation and bicycle helmets,” in the academic journal, Risk Analysis (2011).
• The APA offers examples of various formats for references on its APA Style website (2020).

* Note: Before computers, people underlined these kinds of italicized titles, as this was the only option available on a typewriter; however, underlining is “so 20th century” and is no longer done unless you are writing by hand.

Using these conventions helps the reader to know what kind of text you are writing about without you having to specify it. Like most specialized terminology or conventions, it offers a kind of short hand to avoid wordiness. If you do this incorrectly, you mislead and confuse the reader.

For example, if you are writing about William Blake’s poem, “The Lamb,” you must use quotation marks around the title.  If you don’t use them, and simply write — the lamb — then you are referring to the animal, not the poem. If you italicize The Lamb, you are telling the reader that this is the title of a book (which is incorrect).

References

American Psychological Association (APA). (2020). References examples. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples

Petty, S. & Trudeau, J. (2008, August 11).  The case against bottled water. The Star.  https://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2008/08/11/the_case_against_bottled_water.html

Skinner, B. (2008, July/August). People for sale. The Utne Reader.  https://www.utne.com/politics/people-for-sale