Free Citation Generators

Find the Generator for Your Source

Every generator here runs on the same formatting engine as the main citation generator, so a reference made on one page matches a reference made on another. What changes from page to page is the form: a podcast asks for the host and episode number, a court case for the reporter and court, a dataset for the version and repository.

• Look up by identifier. The DOI, ISBN, PMID and arXiv generators fill in authors, title, year and publication details from the identifier. The PDF Citation Generator finds the DOI inside an article's PDF without uploading the file.
• Books and parts of books. Books, book chapters, e-books, audiobooks, translated, republished and multivolume works, anthologies, forewords, encyclopedia and dictionary entries, and reviews.
• Articles and research. Journal articles, preprints, conference papers, posters, theses and dissertations, reports, annual reports, ERIC documents, datasets, software and GitHub repositories.
• Health and science. Clinical trials, clinical practice guidelines, questionnaires and scales, lab manuals, patents, technical standards and reproduced figures and tables.
• The web and everyday media. Websites, blog posts, Wikipedia, newspapers, magazines, press releases, social media posts, YouTube videos, TED Talks, podcasts, images, maps and mobile apps.

Law, government, arts and teaching sources

• Law and government. Court cases, statutes, the Constitution, federal regulations, congressional bills and hearings, executive orders and treaties. International: UN documents and EU law. Jurisdiction-specific legal styles have their own generators: OSCOLA (UK), AGLC (Australia) and the McGill Guide (Canada).
• Film, music, games and performance. Films, TV episodes, songs, sheet music, radio broadcasts, video games, board games, live performances and advertisements.
• Literature, art and scripture. Poems, plays, Shakespeare, classical works, comics and graphic novels, the Bible and other religious texts, artworks and museum exhibitions.
• Class and unpublished sources. Lectures, online courses, webinars, interviews, speeches, emails and personal communications, manuscripts and archives, vital records, secondary sources and Indigenous knowledge.
• AI. The ChatGPT & AI Citation Generator and AI Image Citation Generator cover generative AI output; the guide on how to cite AI explains the reasoning.

Which Generator to Start With

Check Before You Submit

A generator formats what it is given. Identifier lookups use the metadata the publisher or catalog registered — DOIs through Crossref, ISBNs through book catalogs, PMIDs through PubMed — and that metadata is occasionally wrong: an all-caps title, a missing editor, a conference listed as a journal. Read each reference against the source before it goes into your paper.

• Capitalization. APA uses sentence case for article and book titles; MLA and Chicago use title case. The generator converts, but proper nouns in a database's all-lowercase title need checking.
• Dates. Cite the version you used. A web page's update date, a republished book's original year and a preprint's posting date are easy to mix up.
• Style rules that need you. Whether to include a retrieval date, an archive URL or a database name depends on the source and the style — the How to Cite pages set out each case.
• The whole list. Once the references are right, the Citation & Reference Tools shelf checks, alphabetizes and converts the finished bibliography, and the Annotated Bibliography Maker adds the summaries.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are these citation generators really free?

Yes. Every generator is free to use without an account, and references you save are kept in your browser rather than on a CitationEasy server. You can export them to Word, BibTeX, RIS or CSV.

Which citation style should I choose?

Use the style your instructor, department or journal names. APA 7 is standard in psychology, education and the social sciences; MLA 9 in literature and the humanities; Chicago 18 in history and some humanities fields. If nothing is specified, the citation style quiz suggests one from your field and assignment.

Why do the generators ask for different information?

Because the styles do. A podcast reference needs the host and episode number, a court case the reporter volume and court, a dataset its version and repository. Each generator asks for what its source type needs, so you are not left guessing which box a docket number goes in.

Can a citation generator be wrong?

Yes — usually because the metadata it was given is wrong or incomplete, not because the style rules are. Check author names, capitalization, dates and page ranges against the source itself, especially for references looked up from a DOI, ISBN or URL.

How do I cite a source that has no author or no date?

Leave the field empty rather than inventing a value: the styles have a fallback. APA moves the title into the author position and uses "n.d." for a missing date; MLA starts with the title; Chicago uses "n.d." or omits the date. The guides on citing a source with no author and no date give examples.

Is there a generator for a source that is not listed?

Start with the closest type — a white paper is a report, a newsletter article is a magazine article — or use the manual form in the main citation generator, which covers every source type the citation engine supports. The How to Cite pages show worked examples for common sources in each major style.