Maintain an accurate and thorough working bibliography.
Establish a consistent note-taking system, listing sources and print page numbers and clearly identifying all quotations, paraphrases, summaries, statistics, visuals, and media files.
Identify all quotations with quotation marks—
Be sure your paraphrases and summaries use your own words and sentence structures.
For formal academic writing, provide a citation or note for each quotation, paraphrase, summary, arguable assertion or opinion, statistic, and visual from a source, including an online source. Follow the documentation style your audience expects (learn more about MLA, APA, Chicago, and CSE styles). For less formal writing, linking to a source or some other kind of acknowledgment may be enough.
Prepare an accurate and complete list of sources cited according to the required documentation style: MLA, APA, Chicago, or CSE.
Plan ahead on writing assignments so that you can avoid the temptation to take shortcuts.