Doing a research paper, and I'm reading a book that quotes other books, and it is oftentimes those quotes that I want, but I have no way of getting the original source. Can I just quote the quote? Or what is standard protocol?
The closer you can get to an original source, the better. But if the source you found does not specify his or her sources, or if those sources cannot be located and verified, quote the one you found with sufficient context to make it clear that person was reporting someone else's evidence or conclusions.
Hi, You can usually find the original one way or another, though you may need to spend some time with the library search tools. Wherever possible, you should always quote from the original. For a start it means that you've actually read it and not just read about it. I can't tell you the number of people (myself included) who've been ticked off for not going to the source. And sometimes the non - original quote you get is flat out wrong, or out of context, mis-ascribed or misquoted. If you don't believe me check out pretty much any of the anti vaccination sites, read what they said other scientists have said, and then read what those scientists actually said. They are often worlds apart. My advice, talk to your tutor or a librarian and see what they can do for you. Cheers, Greg.
I use the Harvard referencing system for my academic writing, and we do such references this way: In-text reference: (Shakespeare in Watson, 2012, p. 265) Bibliography reference: Watson, D. (2012) ‘William Shakespeare, Othello: impediments to love’ in Pacheco, A. and Johnson, D. (eds) The Renaissance and Long Eighteenth Century, London, London University Press, A London University, pp. 250–79.
True in theory, given unlimited time and resources. In reality, there will be references you will be unable to track down. Some will be out of print books or journals that were never digitized, others would take a week to get a copy of for a paper due in three days. Sometimes you have to set aside promising trails of research because of missing information. That's preferable to using a secondary source that, accidentally or deliberately, misrepresents the original material. I started college long before there was an Internet. I learned to deal with incomplete information. Today, information is still incomplete, but there is an illusion to the contrary simply because there is so much material out there, only a few clicks away.
And as a follow-up question, if I were to do something along the lines of "As Winston points out, blah blah blah end one sentence. Blah blah blah blah another sentence. Blah blah blah a third sentence." and each of those sentences was derived from what I got from "Winston," would I have to cite him after each sentence? Or only the first, or only the last? Suppose all the information came from one paragraph
I generally use one text reference per paragraph, per source, and if I'm using the same source in the next paragraph, break out the (ibid.)
One full citation in the bibliograqphy at the end, one in-line citation every place you refer to it. If an entire paragraph discusses one reference's points, you can use a single inline reference. See the APA or MLA citation rules online for more specifics.
