Find all of the relevant information needed for a reference. In order to cite correctly you will need to know the author's name and the title of the work. If the information is available you should also include the name of the editor and the edition number. In addition you will need to provide the name of the publisher, the place where your copy was published and the year in which it was published.
Present your reference within the main text of your essay. Put any direct quote in quotation marks to indicate that it is not your work but the work of another. As a general rule, if a quotation is longer than three lines you should isolate it from the main text and indent the entire quote. This should be single spaced to indicate that it is a longer passage and should be given without quotation marks.
Introduce the quote so that your phrasing fits that of the quote. Write in the same tense to avoid any confusion. If this is not possible, however, you can replace certain words to rephrase the quote. For example, take the quote "In my younger and more vulnerable years." It may be more efficient to change the first-person sentence into third person by altering the wording, as in this case: The novel begins with Nick "in [his] younger and more vulnerable years." Use square parentheses to indicate your word replacement.
Cite the source. There are two citing methods for academic essays: the author's name and the date of publication in parentheses after the quote, for example, "(Fitzgerald, 1925)," or a longer source in the form of a footnote. As an example, the Chicago referencing style would give, "F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, New York: Scribner's Sons, 1925, p10." This details the author's name, the book title (typically italicized), the place it was published, the publisher and the date of publication as well as the page number, however the exact order will differ depending on the referencing style.
Ensure that you have acknowledged the ideas of other people as well as direct quotes. Even if you paraphrase a quote or outline somebody else's theory you will need to show recognition for the original author. This is more likely to be given in parentheses after the information, although a footnote would also be acceptable in most cases.
Write a bibliography that includes all the sources cited in your essay. Each citation will include all the information that you would give in a footnote; however, citations in the bibliography need to be in alphabetical order with the author's surname first. In the Harvard referencing style for example, it would read "Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 1925, The Great Gatsby, Scribner's Sons, New York."