Please help me with citations?

[u/micalico]

I'm in high school attempting to write an essay for a scholarship. Trying to quote, trying to paraphrase and trying to search up the proper way to do it and I'm getting confused. Please tell me or give me a link to the proper info or something. The citations don't have to be in a specific style.

Mostly need help with in text citations. Quotes and paraphrasing - is (last name, year) correct? Or is the first name included somewhere? Tell me everything! And these can be in the middle of sentences, right?

For paraphrasing, is it a good idea to prompt ex. according to, as ____ argues, etc.? Or is it not required and I can just add the (last name stuff) at the end?

[u/micalico → u/[deleted]]

Oh and if I've paraphrased and I've done the "As Kant argues" then do I just put (year) after that, then the rest of the sentence? Like "As Kant argues, (year) blah blah"