The Writing Center

by Ruth Rogers ’07

Once in a while you’ll find yourself in the position of using information from a secondary source. A secondary source is when you read an article that cites information from another source, and you use that information in your paper. In this case, you need to credit the original author without claiming to have read that author’s actual article. You do this by using a secondary citation.

The APA manual (5th ed., p. 247) says to do this by naming the original work in the text, then giving a citation for the secondary source; ie:

Smith’s article (as cited in Johnson, 2004) says…

List the Johnson, 2004 work in your reference list just as you would if it were the primary source. The Smith reference does not appear in your reference list.