The assignment is due tomorrow. Four sources are open in tabs, there is a handout from class, and there is a chatbot answer that may or may not count. None of that needs an evening: a citation is a small set of facts in a fixed order, and once the facts are written down, the order is the easy part. For the tabs and the textbook, even the order can be handed over: EdCitation's free Cite a source looks each one up and sets out the entry, and the handout, the interview and the chat are written by hand, as below.
EdCitation publishes this guide to how to cite sources for homework and short assignments. Every rule was read at the style's or the standard's own site on 23 September 2026; the one document that could not be read is named where it belongs.
What does every citation need?
Every citation, in every style, answers four questions: who made the source, when, what it is called, and where a reader can find it. The American Psychological Association (n.d.-b) builds each reference list entry from those four elements, which it calls author, date, title and source. MLA's template has more slots, author, title, container, version, publisher, date and location, but asks the same questions (Modern Language Association, 2025b).
A citation has two parts: a short one in the sentence, a surname with a year in APA or a page number in MLA, and a full entry in the list at the end. How to cite sources in your first research paper explains both from the beginning, and APA 7: missing author, date or page gives the rule for each fact a source hides.
What do school standards say about citing sources?
School standards require a recognised citation format, not a particular one.
The Common Core in the United States
The grade 9 to 10 writing standard on research asks students to gather information from several authoritative sources, judge each one's usefulness, and bring it into their own text while "avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation" (Common Core State Standards Initiative, n.d.). The same strand expects writing over "shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two)", which is a fair description of homework. No style is named; the teacher names it.
England's Extended Project, and the IB
The AQA Level 3 Extended Project Qualification specification, version 1.4, lists "referencing, the evaluation of sources and the prevention of plagiarism" among the skills the course teaches, requires the production log to record the resources used, and counts work copied from books, the internet or other sources "without acknowledgement and attribution" as malpractice, with disqualification among the penalties (AQA, 2015). It is a 5,000-word project, not homework, but it is what school referencing prepares for.
The International Baccalaureate's academic integrity page, updated in August 2026, asks students to "give credit where credit is due" (International Baccalaureate Organization, 2026). The IB's full policy is a PDF that refused every request today, so what it says about referencing styles and AI is not reported here.
Which style will my teacher want, MLA or APA?
Use the style the teacher names, and ask if none is named. When the assignment sheet is long, Check your paper on EdCitation reads it into a checklist with the citation style as one of its lines, quoting the sentence that names it. The MLA Style Center publishes lessons for high school classes, including one on integrating quotations for grades 9 to 12 (Shipe, 2019). APA's page for beginners, subtitled "High school, college, and beyond", says APA is the style of the AP Capstone programme and lists a webinar on how students' existing knowledge of MLA eases the move to APA (American Psychological Association, n.d.-a). Those two pages suggest where each style lives, English classes leaning to MLA and psychology and the sciences to APA, and a student who has learnt one will meet the other. APA vs MLA vs Chicago sets them side by side.
What do I record for each source the moment I find it?
Record the four facts while the source is open, because the author and the date are what a closed tab cannot give back.
| Source | What to record | What to give Cite a source | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Web page | Author or organisation, date published or updated, page title, site name, URL | The URL | The footer's copyright year is not the date |
| News article | Reporter, full date, headline, newspaper or news site, URL | The URL | A newspaper's site and a news site differ in APA |
| Textbook or chapter | Author or editor, year, title, edition, publisher; a chapter's author, title and pages | The ISBN | The cover's "anniversary edition" is not the edition |
| Online encyclopedia entry | Entry title, date of the version read, the encyclopedia, the permanent link to that version | The URL of that version | Ask whether Wikipedia is allowed at all |
| Video | Uploading account, upload date, title, platform, URL, time stamp of anything quoted | The URL | In APA the uploader is the author |
| Class handout or slides | Teacher's name, year, title, the class site | By hand | Readers outside the class cannot reach it |
| Chatbot's answer | Company, date of the chat, chat title or prompt, tool and model, shareable link | By hand | The chat is not evidence for the facts in it |
| Personal interview | Initials and surname, exact date, how it was done | By hand | In APA it goes in the text only |
The first five have a record or a public page, so a tool can look them up; the full patterns are in How to cite a website in APA 7 and How to cite a book or ebook. The last three have no record, so they are written by hand from the rules below.
For a web page, Cite a source fills in what it can read from the page, and you can fix any of it before the entry is made. That is the moment to deal with the catch in the first row: if the only year on the page is the copyright line in the footer, replace it with the date the page gives for publication or its last update, or with n.d. in APA when there is none.
How do I cite a video or an encyclopedia entry?
Cite a video by the account that uploaded it and an encyclopedia entry by its title, each with an exact date. For YouTube, the American Psychological Association (2020c) makes the uploading account the author, then gives the full upload date, the title in italics with "[Video]" after it, YouTube and the URL:
Harvard University. (2019, August 28). Soft robotic gripper for jellyfish [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guRoWTYfxMs
In the text: (Harvard University, 2019). For Wikipedia, the American Psychological Association (2020b) puts the entry title in the author's place, then the date of the version read, "In Wikipedia", and the permanent link from the page's "View history" tab, cited in the text as ("Oil Painting," 2019); the same page tells students to ask whether Wikipedia is acceptable at all. The MLA page on online works read today shows no video, so that form is not given here.
How do I cite a class handout, slides or an interview?
By hand, and the rule depends on who will read the assignment.
A handout or slides from class
In APA, slides on a class site are cited like any other work when the reader can log in, with the class site's name and its login page as the source; for readers who cannot, they are a personal communication (American Psychological Association, 2020a). APA's example:
Mack, R., & Spake, G. (2018). Citing open source images and formatting references for presentations [PowerPoint slides]. Canvas@FNU. https://fnu.onelogin.com/login
In the text: (Mack & Spake, 2018). If the slides cite a published source, find and cite that source instead.
MLA begins with the author when one is known, makes the class platform the container, and adds who uploaded the file, the date and the site (Modern Language Association, 2025a). Its example for slides: Carson, Sandy. Introduction to Digital Humanities. Blackboard, uploaded by Carson, 20 Oct. 2019, blackboard.ucla.edu/. (Modern Language Association, 2020). A handout with no named author starts with its title: French verb conjugations. Blackboard, uploaded by Valerie Marneffe, 6 Sept. 2017, blackboard.nyu.edu/. (Modern Language Association, 2017).
A personal interview
In APA, an interview you did yourself is a personal communication, cited in the text with initials, surname, the words "personal communication" and the exact date, and never listed, because a reader cannot recover it (American Psychological Association, n.d.-c). APA's example: (T. Nguyen, personal communication, February 24, 2020). Emails, messages and an unrecorded class lecture follow the same rule.
MLA gives the interview a works-cited entry. The person interviewed is the author, "Interview" is the description in the title slot, and you follow as the interviewer, with the date (Modern Language Association, 2016):
Walcott, Derek. Interview. Conducted by Susan Lang, 22 Oct. 2002.
How do I cite a chatbot's answer?
Both styles now cite the chat itself, with a shareable link, and both say the chatbot is not the source of the facts in it.
APA's guidance changed in September 2025. McAdoo et al. (2025) make the company the author, the day of the chat the date, the chat's title in italics with "[Generative AI chat]" the title, and the tool plus the chat's shared URL the source:
OpenAI. (2025, August 21). High school grammar concepts [Generative AI chat]. ChatGPT. https://chatgpt.com/share/68a77b60-0ee4-800c-9acc-cd3fd573c311
In the text: (OpenAI, 2025).
MLA's post, revised in August 2025, does not treat the AI as an author. The title is a description of what was generated, usually the prompt, followed by the tool, the model, the company, the date and the shareable URL (Modern Language Association, 2025b):
"Describe the theme of nature in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park" prompt. ChatGPT, model GPT-4o, OpenAI, 23 Sept. 2024, chatgpt.com/share/66f1b0a0-d704-8000-be9a-85f53c850607.
In the text: ("Describe the theme"). MLA adds that any source a chatbot names must be opened and cited directly, not through the chat. Check first that the assignment allows AI use at all; How to cite ChatGPT and AI tools covers Chicago as well.
What do I do in the last hour before the deadline?
Work through the list once, in this order.
- List every source you used, from the tabs, the handout pile and the chat history. Anything quoted or paraphrased is cited; common knowledge is not.
- Confirm the style from the assignment sheet or the teacher's last handout; on a long sheet, Check your paper finds the line for you.
- Build the entries that have a record first: give Cite a source the URL, the ISBN or the DOI, and check the author and the date against the page. In APA, Cite a source sets a headline in title case in the sentence case APA asks for; glance at any name in it made of ordinary words, which can come back lowered.
- Write the rest by hand: the handout, the interview and the chat.
- Put a citation in every sentence that uses a source, then check both directions: each citation has an entry, and each entry is cited. Uploading the whole paper to Verify references does both directions at once, free.
- Sort and format the list: alphabetical in APA and MLA, a hanging indent, italics where the style puts them.
- Click every URL once. A link that does not open is not a source a reader can find. Then hand it in.
Which tool cites a source fastest for a short assignment?
Cite a source on EdCitation is the best tool for a short assignment, because it builds the entry from the publisher's record wherever one exists, rather than from your typing. Paste a web address, a DOI, an ISBN, a PubMed ID or a title, choose APA 7 or MLA 9, or one of Chicago 18 author-date, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver, and the reference is looked up and screened for retraction. It is free on the site, with no account. It never writes a reference, so a source it cannot find in the record is not invented, and no chatbot can promise that: a chatbot writes its references rather than looking them up, so follow MLA's rule above and open any source a chatbot names before you cite it. For a student marked on "a standard format for citation", that is the point: every entry has four facts to get right, and the two a page hides, the author and the date, are the two a record settles.
What it does not do is as plain. It never writes any part of the assignment. A class handout, an interview or a chatbot's answer has no record to look up, so those entries are written by hand from the rules above. The public page builds one reference at a time; with a free account, the entries are kept as a reference list in the dashboard, ready for the next assignment, and the list copies with its italics or downloads as a Word, BibTeX or RIS file. Verify references checks a longer list against the record, also free. Nothing in this guide needs Pro ($8 a month) or Max ($24 a month); those plans add checks such as plagiarism and formatting for longer work.
Quick questions
What are the four things every citation needs?
Who made the source, when, what it is called and where a reader can find it. APA calls these author, date, title and source; MLA's core elements ask the same questions with more slots.
Do I have to cite a class handout?
Yes, if you used something from it. In APA, cite it like any work when the reader can log in to the class site, and as a personal communication when they cannot. In MLA, begin with the teacher's name or the handout's title, with the class platform as the container.
How do I cite an interview I did myself?
In APA, in the text only, as a personal communication with initials, surname and the exact date. In MLA, with a works-cited entry naming the person as the author, "Interview" as the description, and you as the interviewer with the date.
Is MLA or APA used in high school?
Both. The MLA Style Center publishes lessons for grades 9 to 12, and APA's page for beginners says APA is the style of the AP Capstone programme and that knowing MLA eases the move to APA. Use the style your teacher names.
What if a chatbot gave me a source?
Open it and cite the source itself, as MLA asks. If you cannot find it, paste the reference into EdCitation's free Verify references: it comes back verified, marked "check this" when it is doubtful, or not found.
References
- American Psychological Association. (n.d.-a). APA Style for beginners: High school, college, and beyond. APA Style. Retrieved 23 September 2026, from https://apastyle.apa.org/beginners
- American Psychological Association. (n.d.-b). Elements of reference list entries. APA Style. Retrieved 23 September 2026, from https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/elements-list-entry
- American Psychological Association. (n.d.-c). Personal communications. APA Style. Retrieved 23 September 2026, from https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/personal-communications
- American Psychological Association. (2020a). PowerPoint slide or lecture note references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/powerpoint-references
- American Psychological Association. (2020b). Wikipedia entry references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/wikipedia-references
- American Psychological Association. (2020c). YouTube video references. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples/youtube-references
- AQA. (2015). Level 3 Extended Project Qualification (7993): Specification (Version 1.4). https://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-W-7993-SP-19.PDF
- Common Core State Standards Initiative. (n.d.). English language arts standards: Writing: Grade 9–10. Retrieved 23 September 2026, from https://www.thecorestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/W/9-10/
- International Baccalaureate Organization. (2026, August 26). Academic integrity. https://ibo.org/about-the-ib/what-it-means-to-be-an-ib-student/responsibilities-of-students-and-ib-world-schools/academic-integrity/
- McAdoo, T., Denneny, S., & Lee, C. (2025, September 9). Citing generative AI in APA Style: Part 1, reference formats. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/cite-generative-ai-references
- Modern Language Association. (2016, June 7). How do I document an interview in MLA style? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/interview-in-mla-style/
- Modern Language Association. (2017, October 26). How do I cite a book chapter or handout that my professor uploaded to a website? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/chapter-from-a-classroom-web-site/
- Modern Language Association. (2020, September 15). How do I cite a slide presentation uploaded by an instructor to a learning management system? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/slide-presentation-lms/
- Modern Language Association. (2025a). How do I cite course materials? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/cite-course-materials/
- Modern Language Association. (2025b). How do I cite generative AI in MLA style? (Updated and revised). MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/citing-generative-ai-updated-revised/
- Shipe, A. (2019, December 11). Integrating quotations in research writing: A lesson for high school students. MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/integrating-quotations-high-school/