As a researcher, one of your main tasks is to sell your research ideas if you want your paper to get accepted and published by a journal. For this purpose, it's necessary to convince the reviewers and editors that your research is important. But how? Let me ask you this: What is your research for? What problem your research (or solution) can solve?
What you need is to review and cite previous studies to provide the reasons why your research is important. You can make them your supporters and lobbyists. Here are three sentence patterns for citation.
Author (Year) (has) found/stated/noted/mentioned/suggested/indicated
/demonstrated/concluded/pointed out that......
e.g., Soonlin (2019) found that only 15% of participants were willing to turn on their video cameras and microphones when attending online courses.Author A and Author B (Year) (have/has) analysed/identified/provided/proposed/used/reviewed
/investigated/conducted/measured sth or sb......
e.g., Soonlin (2019) has proposed the online-merge-offline (OMO) framework for designing and developing digital learning environments.
e.g., Soonlin and Lin (2020) collected and analysed behavioural data from 214 undergraduate students by an online learning platform.
Numerous/Several/A number of studies (have) indicated/supported/reported/showed/found/noted that...... (Study A; Study B; Study C......)
e.g., Several studies have reported that hybrid-flexible courses have become the new normal for K-12 and higher education since the outbreak of COVID-19 (EDUCAUSE, 2021; UNESCO, 2020, 2021).
