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

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