If you use parenthetical citations, be careful to employ the correct punctuation. If you use parenthetical citations, you MUST include, at the end of the paper, a list of works cited, with full bibliographic citations for each work you cited in the text. State your argument directly. It will speak for itself. Keep a hard copy of your paper, as well as copies on a floppy disc, a hard drive, and on the college's server.
Professors sometimes lose papers.
Make sure you can produce another copy if necessary. Write an introduction that clearly states a precise, specific central argument, or thesis, and provides the reader with a road map for the entire paper. If your paper is required to answer a specific question, your thesis should fully answer that question. Prove that it is correct using evidence from the readings, including brief quotations. As a result, our clearest ideas, and our central argument, usually appear in the conclusion to the first draft.