Any information pulled from another source should be cited.  There is almost no use of the “common knowledge” idea in the technical fields. Cite often to retain your credibility as an author, researcher, technical expert, and engineer.

In-text citations follow a basic (Author, year) pattern. The writer has a choice to include the referenced author/s in the sentence itself or to cite them only in the parentheses.  See the example below, used with permission from Ronald Clarke’s work titled “Yankee Dryer Construction Using ASME SA 516 Grade 70 Steel Versus ASME SA 278 Class 60 Cast Iron: A Comparison of Material Properties Focused on Corrosion” (2016).

The earliest indication of magnetite degradation from carbonic acid can be seen in elevated levels of dissolved iron and conductivity of the condensate exiting the dryer (Toscotec, 2015). An increase in conductivity from normal operating conditions is a cause for concern and needs to be investigated further. In the case of Yankee dryers with soda straw style condensate removal systems similar to what is shown in Figure 2, the soda straws will begin to plug as the magnetite is sloughed off and the total amount of dissolved iron in the system increases. From experience, the rate of reaction is faster in a steel Yankee versus a cast iron Yankee. The lower rate in cast iron may be due to higher amounts of carbon in the base material that hinder corrosion by the formation of a more robust and protective layer of magnetite (Flis, 2009).

If you want to include the name of the author in the sentence, it could look like this:

Flis’ work (2009) notes that the lower rate in cast iron may be due to higher amounts of carbon in the base material that hinder corrosion by the formation of a more robust and protective layer of magnetite.

Another example is below, provided by Lindsay Feldt from her work “Safety Validation” (2016).

The OSH Act of 1970 ensures that workers are provided a safe place to work. There are specific regulations that pertain to automated machinery, which are very general and do not provide a great level of detail for the OEM (Ebens, 2009). Machine safety falls under OSHA’s jurisdiction, but OSHA’s regulations do not provide all of the information needed to design a safe machine. Often the American National Standards Institute’s (ANSI) B11 consensus standards are used as a guide for designing a safe machine. While they originated in Europe, the International Electromechanical Commission (IEC) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) have an increasingly global impact in the US and abroad (Guelker & Hoske, 2013).

With in-text citations under control, move on to working on the References page.