Do I cite the AI tool or the original source?

The original source. If an AI tool pointed you to a paper and you then read the paper, your reference is to the paper. Cite the AI tool itself only when you are using what the tool generated, such as its summary or synthesis, and follow your style guide's format for citing generative AI in that case.

How do I cite a paper I found through Elicit or Consensus?

Cite the paper exactly as you would if you had found it in a library database: authors, year, title, journal, DOI. Neither Elicit nor Consensus appears in the reference. If you are writing a systematic review, name the tool and the search date in your methods section.

Do I have to disclose that I used AI to find sources?

It depends on the venue. Many journals now ask authors to disclose AI-assisted technologies. The Science journals, for example, ask for it in the cover letter and acknowledgments, with details in the methods. The ICMJE Recommendations ask journals to require disclosure. Universities set their own rules for coursework, so check your module or program guidance.

Should I mention AI tools in my acknowledgments?

It's not always required for discovery tools, but increasingly common. A brief mention like “Literature discovery was aided by [tool]” is appropriate if you want to be transparent. Journal policies differ and change: the Science journals, which at first took a very restrictive stance on AI-generated text, now allow AI assistance as long as it is disclosed. Read the current author guidelines for your target journal.

Is using AI to find papers considered cheating?

No—this is equivalent to using any search tool. AI-assisted discovery is becoming a normal part of modern research. The issue is only if you cite sources without reading them. But again, some schools, departments, or journals see things differently.

What if I found a paper through ChatGPT and it doesn't exist?

That happens. AI chatbots can invent plausible-sounding citations that aren't real; both APA and MLA warn about this. Always verify existence through Google Scholar, your library database, or the journal website before citing anything.

What if the AI tool has a DOI or citable format?

Some tools publish a preferred citation for themselves. Elicit's help center, for example, gives one and asks that it include the URL and the date. Use it in your methodology if you are describing your search process, not for the individual papers you found.

Can I trust paper summaries from AI tools?

Use them for screening and relevance checking, not as a substitute for reading. AI summaries can miss nuance, misstate findings, or lack important context. Always verify against the original.

Can I see which sources an AI tool used for its answer?

Sometimes. A tool that searches a database and shows you what it retrieved can list the records it used. A general-purpose chatbot writing from its training data may produce a reference that was never retrieved from anywhere, and the answer usually looks the same either way. Unless the tool states that a citation came from a document it actually opened, treat the list as a set of leads to check rather than a record of what it read.

Sources Found With AI: Which to Cite and How to Check Them

The Short Answer

Cite the source you read, not the tool that found it. You would not cite Google Scholar or your library catalogue for leading you to a paper, and the same goes for Elicit, Consensus, Semantic Scholar, ResearchRabbit, ChatGPT or Wonders.

What you did	What you cite	Do you mention the tool?
Used an AI tool to find a paper, then read the paper	The paper	Not in the reference list. In methods or acknowledgments if your venue asks for AI disclosure
Read only the AI summary of a paper	Nothing yet. Read the paper first	n/a
Reported the tool's own output (a synthesis, a consensus figure, an extracted table)	The tool's output, using your style's format for generative AI	Yes, that is the citation
Ran a systematic or scoping review search with the tool	The papers	Yes, in the methods: tool, date, query
Got a reference from a chatbot that you cannot find anywhere	Nothing. It may not exist	n/a

For the format of a citation to the AI tool itself, see how to cite AI tools.

If you do need to name the tool, in a methods section or a disclosure, see how to cite Consensus, Elicit and other AI research tools. For answer engines that list web sources, see how to cite Perplexity.

When You Might Need to Mention the Tool

There are a few exceptions where acknowledging your discovery method makes sense:

In your methodology section if you're conducting a systematic review or describing your search strategy. Reviewers and readers care about how you found your sources. This isn't a formal citation—it's methodological transparency.

If the AI tool provided the summary or synthesis you're using. This is different from finding a source. If Consensus gave you a synthesis such as "most of the studies found X" and you're reporting that synthesis, you're not citing the original papers—you're citing Consensus's analysis. That requires attribution.

If your institution or journal requires disclosure of AI use. Some venues want to know about any AI involvement in your research process, including literature discovery.

What Actually Needs a Citation

The paper, article, or source itself—always. Using AI to find it doesn't change your obligation to cite the original work.

If you read the abstract through an AI tool but then accessed and read the full paper, cite the full paper normally.

If you only read the AI-generated summary and never accessed the original, that's a problem. You shouldn't cite sources you haven't actually read. More on that below.

The "I Only Read the AI Summary" Problem

This is where things get ethically sticky. AI tools often provide summaries, key findings, or extracted claims from papers. It's tempting to cite the original paper based on that summary alone.

Don't do this.

If you cite a paper, you're representing that you've engaged with and understood that source. Citing based solely on an AI summary means you can't verify the summary is accurate, you might miss context that changes the meaning, and you're essentially citing something you haven't read.

Better options: access the actual paper, use the AI summary to decide if the paper is worth reading, or if you truly can't access it, see our guide on citing sources you can't fully access.

How to Describe AI-Assisted Search in Methods

If you're writing up a formal methodology—for a thesis, systematic review, or publication—here's how to handle it:

"Initial literature discovery was conducted using [Wonders/Elicit/Semantic Scholar], supplemented by manual searches in [databases]. AI-generated summaries were used to screen relevance; all cited sources were read in full."

This is transparent, honest, and increasingly normal in academic writing.

Common Scenarios

You asked a chatbot for paper recommendations. Chatbots can make up citations that don't exist. Verify every recommendation actually exists before citing. If the paper is real and you read it, cite the paper—not the chatbot.

You used Elicit to find papers and extract claims. Cite the papers you actually read. If you used data that Elicit extracted from the papers in your analysis, mention this in your methods and check the extracted values against the papers.

You used Consensus to see what "the research says" on a topic. If you're citing Consensus's synthesis (for example, the distribution shown by its Consensus Meter), you need to attribute that to Consensus. If you then read those studies yourself, cite them directly.

You used Semantic Scholar or ResearchRabbit to map a citation network. No citation needed for the tool. Cite the papers you read.

What a Citation on an AI Answer Actually Means

Two quite different things get presented the same way. One is a record the system retrieved and used: it searched an index, got back real entries, and showed you what it consulted. The other is a reference the model produced from its training, which may describe a paper that does not exist. On screen both arrive as a tidy author-year line under a confident paragraph, and nothing in the formatting distinguishes them.

Unless the tool says outright that a given citation came from a document it retrieved and opened, you cannot tell from the answer which of the two you are looking at. So the practical reading of any citation attached to an AI answer is: this is a lead, and it has not yet been checked. A citation is a pointer to a source, not evidence that the source exists or that it says what the answer claims.

That holds for the two mistakes people make in opposite directions. A reference that resolves to a real paper still does not mean the paper supports the sentence it was attached to. And a reference that you cannot find is not proof of fabrication either — it may be mis-transcribed, paywalled, or indexed under a different title. Either way, the next step is the same: go and look.

The Verification Step You Can't Skip

AI tools can surface papers that are retracted, misrepresent findings, or, in the case of general-purpose chatbots, simply don't exist. Before citing any source you discovered through AI:

Resolve the identifier. Paste the DOI into doi.org or search the title in Crossref, your library discovery service or the journal's own site. A DOI that does not resolve, or that resolves to a different paper, is the fastest signal something is wrong.
Access and read the actual source. The record existing is not the same as the record saying what you were told.
Check the claim against the text. Find the passage the answer is standing on, and confirm the paper states it and states it for the population, period or outcome you are writing about.
Check for a retraction or correction. The publisher's page and the Crossref record both carry retraction and correction notices.

This takes time. It's also non-negotiable for credible academic work.

The exact formatting for your citations depends on your required citation style. Check the specific guide for your discipline below.

Sources

American Psychological Association, Citing generative AI in APA Style: Part 2, AI as a search engine (9 September 2025)
MLA Style Center, How do I cite generative AI in MLA style? (Updated and Revised) (13 August 2025)
Elicit Help Center, Citing Elicit, search methodology, and using Elicit's content in your own work
Consensus, Consensus LibGuide for academic research
Science, Change to policy on the use of generative AI and large language models
ICMJE, Recommendations: Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors, section on AI-assisted technology

Accessed 21 September 2026.

Wonders searches OpenAlex and Semantic Scholar (320M+ scholarly works) and has no index of its own. Quotes in its summaries are checked against the paper text, and where full text is available a page-number citation opens the PDF at the passage, so you can check it before you cite it.