Using references
Good guides to the different kinds of citations in each field: APA style is standard in Linguistics and many other social sciences, but MLA style is more common in English Literature.
http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/
http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/Documentation.html
http://hanyangwriting.tripod.com/citation/
MLA
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/
APA
http://www.library.ubc.ca/pubs/apastyle.pdf
Reporting Verbs (describing the research of others)
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/k-lee7/www/kesl/writ/reportverbs.pdf