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>It's a matter of giving credit where credit is due Yes, as I clarified in my answer to the older sibling of your comment >> If you can't, you cite the seconda

by _0ffh 4y ago

>It's a matter of giving credit where credit is due Yes, as I clarified in my answer to the older sibling of your comment >> If you can't, you cite the secondary source as citing the primary source. (Think "Secundus writes that "Primus writes that ..."", or "Secundus cites Primus on ...".) << The source is that this is what I was taught at university. Also, to me at least, this makes sense if you think it through. Just think about the trouble that not doing so has caused in the story reported in the gp comment. Edit: A quick search indicates that the American Psychological Association, for example, agrees with identifying both the direct and indirect source [1]. In the reference list, provide an entry for the secondary source that you used. In the text, identify the primary source and write “as cited in” the secondary source that you used. [1] https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/secondary-sources https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/...

Al-Khwarizmi 4y ago
It can make sense sometimes, but I think it can often be awkward. If the thing being cited is highly known (which will often be the case, if it is still being cited despite the original document being lost in time) it will probably be cited in many secondary sources, and the citing author might very well not have learned it from any of them (but instead from a university course, a blog, etc.). Sure, one can randomly pick a textbook that they like and that cites that content, but this looks rather arbitrary to me. Personally it's not worth introducing that arbitrariness to solve this problem of "ghost" citations which is not especially common nor harmful. Maybe this is just a biased view... I'm from a country where they obsessively count metrics to evaluate researchers (not that I agree with that, but it's what they do), so being cited or not can be a big deal. I think the best solution might be to use the original citation but mark it somehow as inaccessible, that way it would be explicit that one is just citing for credit and did not really read the document. (I don't think I have seen this ever being done, though).
- Retric 4y ago
  > Sure, one can randomly pick a textbook that they like and that cites that content, but this looks rather arbitrary to me. The alternative is to trust your memory that you’re quoting the correct information on a source you haven’t read. That’s going to quickly mutate into something unrecognizable.

by _0ffh 4y ago

Al-Khwarizmi 4y ago

It can make sense sometimes, but I think it can often be awkward. If the thing being cited is highly known (which will often be the case, if it is still being cited despite the original document being lost in time) it will probably be cited in many secondary sources, and the citing author might very well not have learned it from any of them (but instead from a university course, a blog, etc.). Sure, one can randomly pick a textbook that they like and that cites that content, but this looks rather arbitrary to me. Personally it's not worth introducing that arbitrariness to solve this problem of "ghost" citations which is not especially common nor harmful. Maybe this is just a biased view... I'm from a country where they obsessively count metrics to evaluate researchers (not that I agree with that, but it's what they do), so being cited or not can be a big deal. I think the best solution might be to use the original citation but mark it somehow as inaccessible, that way it would be explicit that one is just citing for credit and did not really read the document. (I don't think I have seen this ever being done, though).

Retric 4y ago
> Sure, one can randomly pick a textbook that they like and that cites that content, but this looks rather arbitrary to me. The alternative is to trust your memory that you’re quoting the correct information on a source you haven’t read. That’s going to quickly mutate into something unrecognizable.