Announcing QuillBot’s New Citation Generator

We at QuillBot are so excited to announce our newest tool: a citation generator! We heard you when you asked for more productivity-enhancing tools━and we have even more in the works as we speak. You can test the citation generator for yourself here: https://quillbot.com/citation-generator. We can’t wait to hear what you think! Read on for more info on the newest tool within the QuillBot platform.

Citations, Citations, Citations!

Citations: they’re not the hardest thing you’ve ever had to write, but they are probably among the least enjoyable. Formulaic, mundane, uncreative…we get it. It’s one of those important-to-learn concepts that, in practice, becomes mindless busy work. That’s why we just launched our very own citation generator to automate this part of your workflow.

QuillBot’s citation generator is the next step in our mission to help you research, draft, and polish your work faster and more efficiently than ever before. From quickly reviewing and comparing potential sources with the summarizer, to perfectly articulating your ideas and arguments with the paraphraser, to low-energy editing with the grammar checker, the citation generator now let’s you effortlessly generate in-text and full citations to further streamline your process.

Your Lifeline for APA, MLA, and Chicago Style Citations

With our new tool, you can curate and create a list of your full citations in APA, MLA, or Chicago style, with easy options for exporting to your clipboard or directly to Word. You can also get in-text citations too, for whatever citation style you’re working within━and believe us, there is no one format that fits all citation styles, so having help here is a life-saver!

If creating this tool wasn’t enough to show you just how much we care about improving your writing and research skills, let us quickly school you on how to avoid the following embarrassing scenario:

You are tasked with writing a paper for your English Literature class in college. You panic. But what style should I use? Am I supposed to know that somehow? HOW? Do I cite a book the same way I cite a webpage? What is the full list of sources called again? Is it different for different styles? When was I supposed to learn this? …Did I ever learn this?

Rest easy, citation padawan. We will save you from the impending frantic online search with our streamlined wisdom.

• How do you pick a citation style to use?

Since your assignment is from a literature class, which is a humanities subject, it’s likely you will need to use MLA format. Most teachers/professors will specify this, since they know that many middle and high schools have different curricula, and even if you did learn it previously, you may have forgotten. Generally speaking though, different fields━education, anthropology, etc.━have different preferred formatting styles.

• Are you supposed to know how to pick the right style?

Yes and no. There are many, many citation styles. We’re starting our efforts with the APA, MLA, and Chicago styles because these are the most commonly used. You couldn’t possibly know all of the available formats, and frankly, it wouldn’t be a good use of your time or brain space, since A) you have us and B) it would take forever and not be very fun.

Here’s a quick breakdown of what styles can be used in a few of the basic disciplines:

1. APA: Psychology, Education, Business, Engineering, and some sciences
2. MLA: Humanities like History, Language, Literature, and Philosophy
3. Chicago: Fine Arts, Anthropology, also used for some other sciences and humanities

This is by no means an exhaustive list, and some fields have their own special styles or use a mix of styles. It’s a jungle out there.

• Do I cite a book the same way I cite a webpage?

Nope! Book and webpage citations are very different because they are very different formats, requiring information specific to each one. Choose what kind of source you’re working with from the drop-down menu, and you won’t have to worry. As you review the generated citations, you’ll start to pick up on patterns for each type of citation, and you may even find that lesson from middle school flooding back to your mind.

• What is the full list of sources called again? Is it different for different styles?

It’s called something different depending on what formatting style you’re using. Check out this handy list below:

1. APA: References
2. MLA: Works Cited
3. Chicago: Bibliography

• When was I supposed to learn this?? …Did I learn this?

Yes, you should have already been, at the very least, introduced to citation styles in middle school, and most high school curricula involve employing at least one of the three most common styles within the scope of a research paper or something like a senior project.

Now you’re ready to slay your literature paper in MLA format! No frustrating internet searches. No time wasted. Just you, out there, effortlessly citing your sources and looking confident while doing it.

So, there you have it: a new tool on our platform and new knowledge in your head. We call that a win-win.