How to Cite a Midjourney Image

APA does not currently publish a dedicated example for this exact source type. The format below applies APA's current AI citation principles to this source.

What APA does publish is two worked AI forms: an AI tool — Google. (2025). Gemini 3 Flash [Large language model]. https://gemini.google.com — and an AI chat, which adds the day and a title and moves the tool's name after the brackets. See APA's AI references examples page and its reference-formats post and judge for yourself. The entry below is APA's chat form element for element — company, full date, a description in the title slot, the version in parentheses, a bracketed label and the link. What is ours is the label itself: [AI-generated image] appears in no APA example. APA permits the swap in so many words — "other descriptions are possible; use the description that best fits the type of AI model or tool used", and, of the chat form, "Adapt the wording within square brackets as needed" — so treat [AI-generated image] as the wording Citation[Z] chose under that permission, and use your instructor's if they prefer another.

Midjourney → date → image description → (version) → [AI-generated image] → job URL. Build it in the generator under Manual Entry → AI-generated image.

Midjourney is a leading text-to-image generator, used through its web app and originally via Discord. It's prized for stylized, high-detail art, which makes it a favorite for posters, concept art, and slide visuals — and a common thing students now need to cite when that art lands in an assignment.

Because the output is generated, not drawn by a person, your citation provides the provenance (which model, when) and keeps you onside with AI-disclosure rules.

• Version matters a lot. Midjourney's look changes sharply between versions (v5, v6, v6.1, v7). Record the exact version — it's the closest thing to an edition. In MLA it is labelled, and labelled "version": MLA asks you to "name the specific AI model or model version as specifically as possible" and prints the two differently — ChatGPT, model GPT-4o for a model name, DALL-E, version 3 for a version number. v6.1 is a version, so the MLA example above reads version v6.1, not model v6.1.
• Use the job URL. Every generation has a shareable job page in your account (midjourney.com/jobs/…). That's the most precise "where it lives" link.
• The prompt is part of the record. Put a short description in the title slot and keep your full prompt in a note or appendix — it makes the image reproducible.
• The company is the author. List Midjourney — the company — in the author slot, not the model and not yourself: APA holds that an AI "cannot be an author because it is not a living, conscious human who can give consent", and defines the author as whoever is "responsible for a work". You're the prompter, which is a third thing. (MLA goes further and doesn't treat the tool as an author at all — it leads with a description of the image.)