Secondary citation

How it is used

In APA style: (Piaget, 1952, as cited in Smith, 2020), and only Smith goes in the reference list. Supervisors expect secondary citations to be rare, so find and read the original when you can. Turkish texts often use 'akt.' for 'as cited in'.

Example sentences

1. If you cannot access the original book, use a secondary citation and name the source you actually read.

2. This thesis contains too many secondary citations from a single textbook.

Common collocations

• as cited in
• use a secondary citation
• avoid secondary citations
• cite the original source

Related terms

• secondary sourceA text that describes, summarizes, analyzes or interprets primary sources or other people's research, such as a review article, textbook or biography.
• primary sourceAn original document or record created at the time of the events or by the people who did the research, such as a letter, archive file, dataset or original study.
• in-text citationA short reference inside the main text, such as (Yılmaz, 2021) or a number [3], that points the reader to the full entry in the reference list.
• APA styleThe writing and citation rules of the American Psychological Association, based on author-date citations and widely used in the social sciences, education and psychology.

More terms: Citing and Referencing

• cite
• citation
• reference list
• paraphrase
• direct quotation
• et al.
• bibliography
• DOI
• reporting verb
• footnote
• reference manager
• Harvard referencing