Certain things do not need to be cited. For example:

• Your own work

• Common knowledge and other obvious factual information that is easy to confirm (e.g., George Washington was our first president)

• Knowledge common to your topic and your readers (e.g., in an English literature paper you should not need to cite this statement: Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream.)

• Common expressions (e.g., let the cat out of the bag)