Usually no citation — but increasingly yes to a declaration. A citation credits specific content, and brainstorming leaves none in your text. A declaration states which tools you used and how, including for planning and proofreading.
They're different requirements, and undeclared use that would have been permitted anyway is itself a breach on a lot of courses.
Citation and declaration do different jobs
- A citation attributes content. It answers “where did this idea, quotation or fact come from?” and lives in your text and reference list. If nothing from the conversation appears in your essay, there's nothing to attribute.
- A declaration describes your process. It answers “what tools did you use in producing this work?” and usually lives on a cover sheet or submission form. It covers exactly the uses that leave no trace — planning, explanation, proofreading.
Students who reason “I didn't use any of its words, so there's nothing to reference” are right about the citation and often wrong about the declaration.
The assignment brief and the submission form, not the general university policy. Declaration requirements are usually set at module level, and two modules on the same degree can differ.
When brainstorming does need a citation
When something specific from it survives into your essay:
- A distinctive framing, structure or line of argument you took directly from the output rather than developing yourself.
- A fact, figure or claim you're stating on the model's authority — though you shouldn't be. Find the real source and cite that instead.
- Any phrasing that made it into your text more or less intact.
If you do need to cite it, this is the format, and many courses also want the prompts in an appendix.
Why declaring is usually the better bet
Declared, permitted use is unremarkable — it's what the form exists for. Undeclared use, discovered later, is a much worse conversation regardless of how minor it was, because the omission is now part of the allegation. The cost of over-declaring is a line on a cover sheet. The cost of under-declaring is a meeting.
If you genuinely can't tell whether your use counts, a two-line email to your module leader settles it and gives you something in writing: “I used an AI tool to help plan the structure and to explain a concept, but wrote the essay myself — does that need declaring on this assignment?”
Keep a note as you go
Not a formal log — just enough to answer the question accurately months later: which tool, roughly when, and what for. It takes seconds while you're working and is unreconstructable afterwards. It also sits naturally alongside the drafts and version history that answer any question about how the essay was written.
Where the line sits more generally is covered in is it cheating to use ChatGPT to plan my essay?
Sage knows your university and course and can talk you through declaration and citation rules for your assignment — before you submit, not after.
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