Last Updated: Mar 14, 2016     Views: 49

Citing a secondary source refers to the situation where you have an article that is citing another author, and you want to cite what the other author said. For example, you have an article by Brown, who cited Smith, and you would like to cite what Smith said.

While there is a format for citing secondary sources, best practice is to first try to obtain the cited article and read it yourself.  You should try to cite the second source directly. 

Here are tips for that process:

If the item is not available, page 178 in the APA 6th Edition Publication Manual has an example of how to cite secondary sources. The APA Style web site also has an example online in their FAQs. 

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