What Is GB/T 7714-2015?
GB/T 7714-2015 is the 2015 edition of China's national standard for describing bibliographic references and marking citations to information resources. It defines the order of bibliographic elements, the punctuation between them, rules for names and titles, and two systems for connecting an in-text citation to the reference list. The “T” is important: GB/T identifies a recommended national standard, not a law that automatically makes one citation style compulsory in every document. A university, department, journal, publisher, or conference can nevertheless require a particular implementation of it as an editorial condition.
The 2015 edition was widely adopted in Chinese university thesis templates and Chinese-language journals, and it replaced GB/T 7714-2005 when it took effect on December 1, 2015. Among the documented revisions were a new standard title, terminology better suited to electronic resources, a DOI element, rules for access paths, optional bilingual description, revised treatment of Chinese names in pinyin, and additional resource codes such as datasets and archives. Those changes explain why a reference exported under a 2005-era template may not exactly match a 2015 template even when both are casually called “GB/T 7714.”
GB/T 7714-2015 is no longer the current edition. The official national standards platforms list it as superseded: GB/T 7714-2025 took effect on July 1, 2026 and wholly replaced the 2015 edition. This page remains useful for a thesis, journal workflow, archive, or software project that explicitly asks for the 2015 edition. Before submitting new work, read the exact institutional or journal template named in your instructions. If it calls for 2025, do not use a 2015 output merely because the URL of this generator contains “2015”; if it still calls for 2015, use the older rules and any local house-style overrides consistently.
The Two GB/T 7714 Citation Systems
GB/T 7714-2015 does not prescribe one universal in-text pattern. It defines a numeric system, called 顺序编码制, and an author-date system, called 著者-出版年制. The choice changes both the marker in the text and the order and punctuation of the reference list. It is therefore not enough to change “(Yu et al., 2012)” to “[1]” at the end of drafting: the bibliography must be reorganized as well. Choose one system from the governing template before writing, then apply it throughout the document.
Numeric system (顺序编码制)
In the numeric system, each source receives a number when it is first cited. The in-text marker uses that number in square brackets, while the reference list follows first-citation order rather than alphabetic order. A later citation to the same work reuses the original number. Local templates may place the bracketed number on the baseline or as a superscript and may specify how to compress a range, so copy that presentation rule from the document template rather than guessing.
- In text
- A trusted filing model was proposed for online pharmaceutical transactions[1].
- Reference-list entry
- [1] 于潇, 刘义, 柴跃廷, 等. 互联网药品可信交易环境中主体资质审核备案模式[J]. 清华大学学报(自然科学版), 2012, 52(11): 1518-1523.
Author-date system (著者-出版年制)
In the author-date system, the text identifies the author and publication year. If the author is already named in the sentence, only the year is parenthetical; a multi-author in-text citation uses the first author followed by 等 or et al., and same-author works from the same year use suffixes such as 2020a and 2020b. The list is arranged by author name and then by year, not by the first appearance of each work, with language grouping when the required template calls for it. Chinese prose generally uses the Chinese author name, while an English manuscript should follow its target publication's language and romanization policy. Works without a personal author and other disambiguation cases must follow the chosen template. The same real journal article used above demonstrates that the information source has not changed; only the citation system has.
- In text
- The model addresses qualification filing in trusted online pharmaceutical transactions (于潇等, 2012).
- Reference-list entry
- 于潇, 刘义, 柴跃廷, 等, 2012. 互联网药品可信交易环境中主体资质审核备案模式[J]. 清华大学学报(自然科学版), 52(11): 1518-1523.
Reference Format by Source Type
A GB/T reference is built from bibliographic elements, not from a single punctuation shortcut. Identify the resource you actually consulted, find the creator and title on the resource itself, record publication facts, and add the locator needed to recover the cited passage. The compact codes below are the familiar GB/T resource identifiers: J for a journal, M for a monograph, D for a dissertation, C for conference proceedings or a contribution in them, N for a newspaper, S for a standard, P for a patent, and EB/OL for an online electronic bulletin or web resource.
In the text of the 2015 standard, a resource-type identifier is an optional element, but many universities and journals make the codes part of their required house style. The templates below include them because that is the common 2015 workflow and because omitting a code from a template that requires it will fail a format check. “OL” describes an online carrier and is combined with the resource type, which is why an online journal may appear as J/OL while a general webpage appears as EB/OL. Do not label every item found through a browser EB/OL: classify the underlying resource first.
The examples are genuine records reproduced in normalized punctuation from examples in the 2015 standard. A template shows element order; it does not authorize inventing a missing city, publisher, date, page range, patent number, or access date. When a field is absent, consult the full rule and the receiving publication's instructions for the appropriate omission or placeholder.
| Source and code | Format template | Genuine example |
|---|---|---|
| Journal article [J] | Author. Article title[J]. Journal title, year, volume(issue): page range. | 于潇, 刘义, 柴跃廷, 等. 互联网药品可信交易环境中主体资质审核备案模式[J]. 清华大学学报(自然科学版), 2012, 52(11): 1518-1523. |
| Book or monograph [M] | Author. Book title[M]. Edition. Place: Publisher, year: cited page(s). | 张伯伟. 全唐五代诗格会考[M]. 南京: 江苏古籍出版社, 2002: 288. |
| Dissertation or thesis [D] | Author. Title[D]. Place: Degree-granting institution, year: cited page(s). | 吴云芳. 面向中文信息处理的现代汉语并列结构研究[D]. 北京: 北京大学, 2003. |
| Conference paper [C] | Author. Paper title[C]//Editor or organization. Proceedings title. Place: Publisher, year: pages. | 汪学军. 中国农业转基因生物研发进展与安全管理[C]//国家环境保护总局生物安全管理办公室. 中国国家生物安全框架实施国际合作项目研讨会论文集. 北京: 中国环境科学出版社, 2002: 22-25. |
| Newspaper article [N] | Author. Article title[N]. Newspaper title, YYYY-MM-DD(page or edition). | 丁文祥. 数字革命与竞争国际化[N]. 中国青年报, 2000-11-20(15). |
| Standard [S] | Responsible body. Standard title: standard number[S]. Place: Publisher, year: cited page(s). | 全国信息与文献标准化技术委员会. 文献著录: 第4部分 非书资料: GB/T 3792.4—2009[S]. 北京: 中国标准出版社, 2010: 3. |
| Patent [P] | Applicant or inventor. Patent title: patent number[P]. Publication date. | 张凯军. 轨道火车及高速轨道火车紧急安全制动辅助装置: 201220158825.2[P]. 2012-04-05. |
| Web resource [EB/OL] | Author or organization. Title[EB/OL]. (Publication or update date)[access date]. URL. DOI when available. | Dublin core metadata element set: version 1.1[EB/OL]. (2012-06-14)[2014-06-11]. http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. |
How to Cite Chinese-Language Sources
Start with the source, not with an automatic translation. Capture the Chinese authors, original title, journal or publisher, year, volume, issue, pages, and DOI exactly as the publication supplies them. GB/T 7714-2015 permits a bilingual description when it is necessary and says that the original-language description comes first, followed by the other language. It does not mean that every English paper must replace a Chinese title with an unlabelled English title. The journal, instructor, or thesis template decides whether to retain Chinese script, add pinyin, add an English translation, or include a language note.
For a Chinese author name written in pinyin under the 2015 rules, the family name is written in full in uppercase. The given name may be written out or abbreviated to one initial for each Chinese character, without abbreviation periods; use the full given name when initials cannot identify the person. Keep the Chinese name order, family name before given name, unless the publication gives an authoritative preferred form or the receiving journal explicitly requires a different convention. Do not infer where a family name ends from an English-looking string: verify it against the article, an ORCID record, or the publication's own English metadata.
Use an official English title when the journal, repository, book, or author provides one. If no official translation exists and the target style requests a translated title, translate for meaning, keep the original bibliographic identity recoverable, and add a language label only in the form required by that target style. A translated title is not a new source and must not be paired with an invented English journal title. For Chinese periodicals, the publication's official English title or transliterated title is preferable to a literal translation made during citation formatting.
A practical workflow is to preserve a master record in the source language and create the submission form from that record. If a Chinese article has a DOI, search by DOI first because it is less ambiguous than a translated title. If the DOI registry returns sparse or English-only metadata, compare it with the article PDF or journal page and correct the record manually. For older Chinese books, theses, and newspapers without a DOI, use the title search as a starting point and then verify the creator, date, institution, city, pages, and resource type. A generated reference is a draft until those fields agree with the source.
- Original-language entry
- 于潇, 刘义, 柴跃廷, 等. 互联网药品可信交易环境中主体资质审核备案模式[J]. 清华大学学报(自然科学版), 2012, 52(11): 1518-1523.
- Romanized author pattern when required
- YU X, LIU Y, CHAI Y T, et al. Keep the official or accurately verified title treatment required by the receiving publication.
GB/T 7714 vs APA: Key Differences
GB/T 7714 and APA can both produce an author-date citation, but that does not make their reference entries interchangeable. APA is a publication style with its own capitalization, italicization, author, DOI, and retrieval-date rules. GB/T is a national bibliographic standard with different element order, punctuation, coding, and a numeric option. Converting between them requires remapping the source metadata; swapping square brackets for parentheses is not a conversion.
| Feature | GB/T 7714-2015 | APA 7 |
|---|---|---|
| In-text systems | Supports numeric and author-date systems. | Uses an author-date system. |
| Reference-list order | Citation order for numeric; author and year order for author-date. | Alphabetical by author, with APA rules for same-author works. |
| Long author lists | When there are more than three creators, normally records the first three followed by 等 or et al. | Lists up to 20 authors; for 21 or more, lists the first 19, an ellipsis, and the final author. |
| Year position | Depends on the selected system and source template; author-date places it after the creator. | Appears in parentheses immediately after the author element. |
| Resource-type codes | May use codes such as [J], [M], [D], and [EB/OL], often required by local templates. | Does not use GB/T bracketed resource codes. |
| Online access information | Online templates record an access date and access path, and may record a DOI. | Uses DOI or URL rules; a retrieval date is generally reserved for content designed to change over time. |
Common Mistakes
Most failed GB/T references are metadata or consistency failures rather than an exotic punctuation problem. Review the reference list as a system: every in-text marker must resolve to one entry, every entry must represent the resource actually consulted, and every entry must follow the same edition plus the same institutional overrides. The following comparisons use compact examples so that the error is visible.
- Calling the 2015 edition current. A saved template can still require 2015, but its continued use does not change the official status of the standard.
- Wrong
- GB/T 7714-2015 is the latest Chinese reference standard.
- Correct
- GB/T 7714-2025 has been effective since July 1, 2026; use 2015 only when the governing workflow still specifies it.
- Mixing the two citation systems. A numbered in-text citation requires a list in citation order; an author-date citation requires the corresponding author-date list treatment.
- Wrong
- Text uses [4], but the list is alphabetized.
- Correct
- For the numeric system, entry [4] is the fourth distinct source first cited and appears fourth in the list.
- Classifying the access method instead of the resource. Finding a journal article online does not turn the work into a generic webpage.
- Wrong
- An online journal article marked only [EB/OL].
- Correct
- Use [J/OL] when the cited resource is an online journal article and the template requires the carrier code.
- Applying APA author rules to GB/T. The two styles truncate long creator lists differently.
- Wrong
- Listing 19 authors before an ellipsis in a GB/T 7714-2015 entry.
- Correct
- For more than three creators, record the first three and then 等 for Chinese or et al. for other languages, subject to the required template.
- Dropping recovery details from an online source. A bare title and URL do not show when a changing resource was consulted.
- Wrong
- Organization. Page title[EB/OL]. URL.
- Correct
- Record the available publication or update date, the access date in square brackets, and the access path in the order required for [EB/OL].
- Silently replacing Chinese bibliographic data. An improvised translation can make a real source impossible to identify.
- Wrong
- Replace a Chinese article and journal title with literal English translations and give no original title or language treatment.
- Correct
- Preserve the original record, use an official English title when available, and add translation or romanization only as the receiving guide instructs.
- Trusting imported metadata without review. DOI and title services can omit pages, misidentify a resource type, or return a translated title without the original.
- Wrong
- Paste, generate, and submit without opening the cited source.
- Correct
- Compare authors, title, date, container, volume, issue, pages, DOI, and resource code with the source and the required template.
GB/T 7714-2015 Frequently Asked Questions
- What does [J] mean in GB/T 7714? [J] identifies a journal resource. For a journal article consulted online, a template that records the carrier may use [J/OL]. The presence of a URL alone is not a reason to relabel the article [EB/OL].
- Is GB/T 7714 the same as GB/T 7714-2015? GB/T 7714 names the standard family; the year identifies an edition. GB/T 7714-2015 replaced the 2005 edition and was itself wholly replaced by GB/T 7714-2025 on July 1, 2026. Use the year named by your institution, journal, or project.
- Does GB/T 7714 use numeric or author-date citations? The 2015 standard supports both. Numeric citations connect bracketed numbers to a list in citation order; author-date citations connect names and years to a list arranged by author and year. Do not mix the two systems in one document.
- How do I cite a website in GB/T 7714? For a general online resource, record the responsible author or organization, title, [EB/OL], available publication or update date, your access date, and the access path. If the item is really an online journal article, book, dissertation, or patent, use its underlying resource type with the online carrier instead.
- Can this generator convert a full BibTeX record directly? No. This page does not parse a pasted BibTeX block. If the record contains a DOI, paste the DOI; otherwise search by the exact title, choose the matching result, or enter the fields manually. Verify the output because imported metadata and local templates can differ.