Citation & Bibliography Generator
Generate properly formatted citations and bibliographies in multiple academic and professional styles. Supports manual entry, structured data import, and automatic metadata lookup via DOI/ISBN.
Quick Start from scripts.citation_generator import CitationGenerator
Create generator with desired style
gen = CitationGenerator(style='apa')
Cite a book
citation = gen.cite_book( authors=["Smith, John", "Doe, Jane"], title="Research Methods in Social Science", year=2020, publisher="Academic Press", city="New York" ) print(citation)
Output: Smith, J., & Doe, J. (2020). Research methods in social science. Academic Press.
Build bibliography
gen.add_to_bibliography(citation) bibliography = gen.generate_bibliography() print(bibliography)
Supported Citation Styles APA (American Psychological Association) - 7th Edition MLA (Modern Language Association) - 9th Edition Chicago (Chicago Manual of Style) - 17th Edition IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Harvard (Harvard referencing style) Features 1. Manual Citation Creation
Format citations by source type:
Books - Monographs, edited volumes, editions Journal Articles - Peer-reviewed articles with DOI Websites - Online sources with access dates Conference Papers - Proceedings and presentations 2. Automatic Metadata Lookup DOI Lookup - Fetch article metadata from CrossRef API ISBN Lookup - Retrieve book information (when available) Auto-detect source type and format accordingly 3. Bibliography Management Add multiple citations Auto-sort by author, year, or title Duplicate detection and removal Export to plain text or BibTeX 4. In-Text Citations
Generate parenthetical or narrative in-text citations:
Parenthetical: (Smith, 2020, p. 45) Narrative: Smith (2020) argues that... Multiple authors with et al. handling 5. Batch Processing
Import citations from CSV files with structured data and generate complete bibliographies.
API Reference CitationGenerator
Initialization:
gen = CitationGenerator(style='apa')
Parameters:
style (str): Citation style - 'apa', 'mla', 'chicago', 'ieee', or 'harvard' Citation Methods cite_book() citation = gen.cite_book( authors=["Last, First", "Last, First"], title="Book Title", year=2020, publisher="Publisher Name", city="City", # Optional edition="3rd ed.", # Optional isbn="978-0-123456-78-9" # Optional )
Returns: Formatted citation string
cite_article() citation = gen.cite_article( authors=["Last, First"], title="Article Title", journal="Journal Name", year=2020, volume=10, # Optional issue=2, # Optional pages="45-67", # Optional doi="10.1234/example" # Optional )
Returns: Formatted citation string
cite_website() citation = gen.cite_website( authors=["Last, First"], # Can be empty list title="Page Title", url="https://example.com", access_date="2024-01-15", publish_date="2023-12-01" # Optional )
Returns: Formatted citation string
cite_from_doi() citation = gen.cite_from_doi(doi="10.1234/example")
Looks up article metadata from CrossRef API and generates formatted citation.
Returns: Formatted citation string
Bibliography Management add_to_bibliography() gen.add_to_bibliography(citation)
Add a citation to the bibliography list.
generate_bibliography() bibliography = gen.generate_bibliography( sort_by='author', # 'author', 'year', or 'title' deduplicate=True # Remove duplicate entries )
Returns: Formatted bibliography string with hanging indent
export_bibtex() gen.export_bibtex(output_path='references.bib')
Export bibliography as BibTeX format for LaTeX documents.
In-Text Citations in_text_citation() citation = gen.in_text_citation( authors=["Smith, J."], year=2020, page="45", # Optional narrative=False # True for narrative style )
Returns:
Parenthetical: (Smith, 2020, p. 45) Narrative: Smith (2020) Batch Processing import_from_csv() citations = gen.import_from_csv(csv_path='citations.csv')
Import multiple citations from CSV file.
CSV Format:
type,authors,title,year,journal,publisher,doi,isbn,url,access_date article,"Smith, J.|Doe, A.",Research Methods,2020,Journal of Science,,10.1234/example,,, book,"Johnson, M.",Data Analysis,2019,,Academic Press,,978-0-123456-78-9,, website,,"Web Page Title",2024,,,,,https://example.com,2024-01-15
Note: Separate multiple authors with | pipe character
Returns: List of formatted citation strings
CLI Usage Single Citation
Book:
python scripts/citation_generator.py book \ --authors "Smith, J." "Doe, A." \ --title "Research Methods" \ --year 2020 \ --publisher "Academic Press" \ --city "New York" \ --style apa
Article:
python scripts/citation_generator.py article \ --authors "Smith, J." \ --title "Study Title" \ --journal "Journal Name" \ --year 2020 \ --volume 10 \ --issue 2 \ --pages "45-67" \ --doi "10.1234/example" \ --style mla
Website:
python scripts/citation_generator.py website \ --title "Page Title" \ --url "https://example.com" \ --access-date "2024-01-15" \ --style chicago
DOI Lookup python scripts/citation_generator.py doi \ --doi "10.1234/example" \ --style apa
Batch Processing python scripts/citation_generator.py batch \ --input citations.csv \ --style harvard \ --output bibliography.txt \ --sort author
BibTeX Export python scripts/citation_generator.py batch \ --input citations.csv \ --format bibtex \ --output references.bib
CLI Arguments Argument Description Default --style, -s Citation style (apa/mla/chicago/ieee/harvard) apa --authors, -a Author names (multiple allowed) - --title, -t Title of work - --year, -y Publication year - --input, -i Input CSV file (batch mode) - --output, -o Output file path stdout --format, -f Output format (text/bibtex) text --sort Sort bibliography by (author/year/title) author Examples Example 1: APA Book Citation gen = CitationGenerator(style='apa') citation = gen.cite_book( authors=["Doe, Jane", "Smith, John"], title="The Art of Research", year=2021, publisher="University Press", edition="2nd ed." ) print(citation)
Doe, J., & Smith, J. (2021). The art of research (2nd ed.). University Press.
Example 2: MLA Article Citation gen = CitationGenerator(style='mla') citation = gen.cite_article( authors=["Johnson, Mary"], title="Digital Humanities in the 21st Century", journal="Modern Research Quarterly", year=2022, volume=15, issue=3, pages="112-145", doi="10.5678/mrq.2022.15.3" ) print(citation)
Johnson, Mary. "Digital Humanities in the 21st Century." Modern Research Quarterly, vol. 15, no. 3, 2022, pp. 112-145. DOI: 10.5678/mrq.2022.15.3.
Example 3: Chicago Website Citation gen = CitationGenerator(style='chicago') citation = gen.cite_website( authors=["Brown, Robert"], title="Understanding Machine Learning", url="https://ml-guide.example.com", access_date="2024-01-20", publish_date="2023-11-15" ) print(citation)
Brown, Robert. "Understanding Machine Learning." Last modified November 15, 2023. Accessed January 20, 2024. https://ml-guide.example.com.
Example 4: Building a Bibliography gen = CitationGenerator(style='apa')
Add multiple citations
gen.add_to_bibliography(gen.cite_book( authors=["Smith, A."], title="First Book", year=2020, publisher="Press A" ))
gen.add_to_bibliography(gen.cite_article( authors=["Jones, B."], title="Research Article", journal="Journal X", year=2021 ))
Generate formatted bibliography
bibliography = gen.generate_bibliography(sort_by='author') print(bibliography)
Example 5: DOI Lookup gen = CitationGenerator(style='ieee') citation = gen.cite_from_doi(doi="10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2947014") print(citation)
Auto-fetches metadata and formats in IEEE style
Example 6: Batch Processing from CSV gen = CitationGenerator(style='harvard') citations = gen.import_from_csv('my_references.csv')
Add all to bibliography
for citation in citations: gen.add_to_bibliography(citation)
Generate and export
gen.export_bibtex('references.bib')
Dependencies pandas>=2.0.0 requests>=2.31.0
Install dependencies:
pip install -r scripts/requirements.txt
Limitations API Availability: DOI/ISBN lookups require internet connection and depend on third-party APIs (CrossRef) API Rate Limits: CrossRef API has rate limits; implement delays for batch lookups Style Variations: Some citation styles have discipline-specific variations not fully covered Special Characters: Unicode support for accents and special characters may vary by output format Edition Numbers: Different styles format editions differently (ordinal vs text) Author Name Formats: Input should be "Last, First" format; parsing other formats may be inconsistent Multiple Authors: Et al. rules vary by style (APA: 3+, MLA: 3+, Chicago: 4+) Online-First Articles: Articles published online before print may have partial metadata Non-English Sources: Some citation styles have specific rules for non-English sources that may not be fully implemented Citation Style Guidelines APA (American Psychological Association) Author-date system Ampersand (&) before last author Title case for book titles, sentence case for article titles DOI as URL: https://doi.org/10.xxxx MLA (Modern Language Association) Author-page system "And" before last author Title case for all titles Container concept (journal is container for article) Chicago (Chicago Manual of Style) Notes and bibliography system "And" before last author Title case for titles Access dates for websites IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Numbered references [1], [2], etc. Initials before last name Quotation marks for article titles Abbreviated journal names Harvard Author-date system "And" before last author Italic for book/journal titles Available at: for URLs