Problem: Article: You don't have to get fancy heresimply place your shears or clippers as close to the ground as you can and cut down as many stems as you desire (or all of them). Pruning shears will work in any instance, but hedge clippers might make the job quicker if you have a lot of coneflowers to prune down. Each fall, your coneflower plants will die off down to the ground, leaving behind brown and dry stems and wilted leaves and flowers. Then, in the spring, new stems will emerge and mark the annual renewal of your coneflowers. This natural process will occur whether you cut away the dead plant material or not. Simply put, if you don't like how the plant looks after its flowers have died off and its green color has faded, feel free to chop it down to the ground. If you prefer a natural look to your garden, leave it be. The coneflower plant doesn't care whether you prune it to the ground or not, and it also doesn't mind whether you prune it down right after a growing season or right before the next one. The choice is yours based on your preferences. You may decide that pruning in the fall makes your garden look better, and it might also reduce the number of seeds that make it to the ground (and thus limit coneflower expansion). Or, if you'd like to provide your local birds with some yummy seeds before winter comes, you can wait until the next spring (before any signs of life return to the plant) to chop it down.
Summary: Use pruning shears or hedge clippers to cut the plant to ground level. Cut coneflowers down to the ground purely as an aesthetic choice. Prune it to the ground either in late fall or early spring.

Problem: Article: Start with the author's last name, add a comma, then write their first name. If they have a middle name or initial, place it after their first name, but don't include a comma after the first name. It should look like this: Thoreau, Henry David. For an article with 2 authors, arrange the authors in alphabetical author. Write the first author with their last name first, and the second with their first name first, like this: O'Reilly, Sophie and Noelle Poremski. If an article has more than 3 authors, type the name of the first author followed by "et al." If the article has a subtitle, include it. Add a period after the full title, and be sure to place the period before the final quotation mark. So far, an entry would look like this: Lorensen, Jutta. "Between Image and Word, Color, and Time: Jacob Lawrence's The Migration Series." Note that The Migration Series is a set of paintings. Books, periodical titles, works of visual art, movies, TV shows, music albums, and websites almost always need to be italicized. The MLA handbook refers to magazines, newspapers, journals, and anthologies as "containers." These are the larger wholes that contain smaller parts, such as articles, essays, and poems. Type the container's title in italics, place it after the article's title, then add a comma. At this point, your entry should read: Lorensen, Jutta. "Between Image and Word, Color, and Time: Jacob Lawrence's The Migration Series." African American Review, If you're citing a magazine or newspaper, include the day, month, and year of publication, then add a comma. For academic journals, include the volume, issue, and year of publication. Use the abbreviations vol. for volume and no. for issue, and separate them with commas. An academic journal citation should read: Lorensen, Jutta. "Between Image and Word, Color, and Time: Jacob Lawrence's The Migration Series." African American Review, vol. 40, no. 3, 2006, When including the full publication date, always abbreviate the month: Buchman, Dana. "A Special Education." Good Housekeeping, Mar. 2006, For newspapers like the New York Times or the Washington Post, there's no need to include the newspaper's city. However, include the city in brackets for lesser-known or local newspapers: Gome, Alexandra. "A new year-round watering schedule for Foxboro." Sun Chronicle [Attleboro, MA], 27 Sept. 2018, If the article takes up multiple pages, write "pp." followed by the page range, and end the entry with a period. Place a hyphen with no spaces between the first and last page numbers. If you're citing a newspaper, be sure to list the page number exactly as it appears on the printed copy. A finished academic citation should read: Jacob Lawrence's The Migration Series." African American Review, vol. 40, no. 3, 2006, pp. 571-86. A magazine or newspaper citation should look like this: Brubaker, Bill. "New Health Center Targets County's Uninsured Patient." Washington Post, 24 May 2007, p. LZ01.
Summary: Begin your entry with the author, then add a period. Write the article's title in quotation marks. Add the magazine, newspaper, or journal title in italics. Specify the volume, issue, and date. Finish the entry with the page numbers.

Problem: Article: While backfiring can be done manually with relative ease in old cars, it's important you have an understanding of what backfiring is, and what causes it. A misplaced spark or unexpected burst of fuel or air will cause a loud burst from the engine. While modern cars come equipped with systems to regulate these aspects via an Engine Control Unit (ECU), older cars (roughly before 1990) are far more malleable. It's important to keep in mind the reasons why regulating systems were installed in the first place. Excessive backfiring is very unhealthy for your vehicle, and can ultimately result in having to replace parts. Bring it to a steady rev. Prepare the vehicle as you regularly would. Normal safety checks (including dripping oil) are much more important here, as you'll be charging an open flame. The location in which you do this must be open, and relatively free of things that might get caught by the flame. This includes anyone who may be watching. Keep that at a healthy distance-- around 10 meters (33ft) should be good. This will prep your car for some backfiring. Ideally, you don't want to start moving fast while you're turning on the engine, so keep the pressure light. Keep your foot on the gas pedal as it starts up. Once it's up, press the accelerator down as hard as you can. This should cause the car to backfire.
Summary:
Consider the reasons that cars backfire. Start your vehicle. Turn the engine off again, with your foot on the gas pedal. Wait a few seconds, then restart the car.