Help me cite a reference.

November 6, 2005 6:21 PM

Help me with citing a reference.

I need to cite a reference that references someone else, and I don't have the original published work to go pull the information from. Here's the bit I'm using: "[T]he Bengal fan…is largely cut off from its supply of sediment and…the modern river sediments are trapped on the Bengal shelf as a result of the Holocene transgression (Curray and Moore, 1974; Curray et al., 1982; Emmel and Curray, 1985)."

However this is coming from an article in Issue 12 of Geology Magazine from 1989. Do I cite the author of the article in Geology, or do I find the author's reference and cite the original 1974 reference?

posted by nile_red to writing & language (9 comments total)

Are you using MLA format?
posted by deafweatherman at 6:30 PM on November 6, 2005

Well, generally you say "as cited in" or something similar. That is, you cite it where you find it. The precise form depends on the syle you use: Chicago, MLA, etc.
posted by dame at 6:31 PM on November 6, 2005

In MLA style : ( qtd . in Levin 13)
With APA style: (cited in Levin, 1982, p. 13)

I am pretty sure that in both cases you will want to cite the author of the text the citation appeared in.
posted by deafweatherman at 6:40 PM on November 6, 2005

I should have said, "cite the author of the text the citation appeared in, in the reference list."
posted by deafweatherman at 6:41 PM on November 6, 2005

If the actual quote is from the 1989 article, you shouldn't include that author's references in the quote. You should reference it: "..." (Xxx 1989, following Curray and Moore, 1974; Curray et al., 1982; Emmel and Curray, 1985 )

Then in the references, following the details of the works you haven't seen, add the note: non vidi - cited in Xxx 1989. (That's Latin for "I haven't seen")

That's how I'd do it, anyway. If your professor or publisher is very fussy about having citations done exactly right, they'll have a stylesheet which will tell you how to do this their way.

Oh, and ideally, of course, you should try to get hold of the original works, but that's not always possible.
posted by nomis at 6:41 PM on November 6, 2005

If APA:

Work discussed in a secondary source

Coltheart, M., Curtis, B., Atkins, P., & Haller, M. (1993). Models of reading aloud: Dual-route and parallel-distributed-processing approaches. Psychological Review, 100, 589-608.

NOTE: Give the secondary source in the references list; in the text, name the original work, and give a citation for the secondary source. For example, if Seidenberg and McClelland's work is cited in Coltheart et al. and you did not read the original work, list the Coltheart et al. reference in the References. In the text, use the following citation:

In Seidenberg and McClelland's study (as cited in Coltheart, Curtis, Atkins, & Haller, 1993), ...

From OWL at Purdue, an excellent APA reference.
posted by librarina at 6:42 PM on November 6, 2005

Yeah, I can get a few of the originals, but quite a few of them cost 30$ a pop, and I'm just not that rich a student.

The instructor doesn't care what referencing style I choose, so long as I choose one and am consistent with it.

So I'd reference it as:

Curray and Moore, 1974; Curray et al., 1982; Emmel and Curray, 1985
non vidi - cited in Geology Vol. 17, Issue 12, Dec. 1989: 1132-1135 (then article title, author, etd)

?
posted by nile_red at 6:51 PM on November 6, 2005

oh, I didn't see librarina's answer, I get it now, thanks!
posted by nile_red at 6:52 PM on November 6, 2005

http://citationmachine.net/
posted by nimsey lou at 8:15 AM on November 7, 2005