In scholarly work, a primary source reports original content, while a secondary source refers to content first reported in another source.
According to APA 7, secondary sources should be used very sparingly. Use them only when the original work is out of print, unavailable, or available only in a language you don't understand. Otherwise, APA 7 expects students to locate the primary source, read it, and cite it directly.
If you do need to cite a secondary source, Section 8.6 of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition states:
When citing a secondary source, provide a reference list entry for the secondary source that you used. In the text, identify the primary source and then write "as cited in" the secondary source that you used. If the year of publication of the primary source is known, also include it in the text. For example, if you read a work by Lyon et al. (2014) in which Rabbitt (1982) was cited, and you were unable to read Rabbitt's work yourself, cite Rabbitt's work as the original source, followed by Lyon et al.'s work as the secondary source. Only Lyon et al.'s work appears in the reference list.
(Rabbitt, 1982, as cited in Lyon et al., 2014)
If the year of the primary source is unknown, omit it from the in-text citation.
Allport's diary (as cited in Nicholson, 2003)
PERRLA doesn't have a dedicated function for secondary sources, but you can still add them to your paper with a small amount of manual editing. These instructions assume you already have your paper open.
- Create a reference for your secondary source.
- Add a regular citation to the paper using the reference you created in Step 1.
- Place your cursor after the opening parenthesis.
You may need to use the arrow keys on your keyboard to correctly place your cursor after the parenthesis but outside the locked content control box. - Type "as cited in " before the citation.
If you did not mention the author of the original work in the sentence, you will also need to type the original author's name, followed by a comma, the year of publication (if available), and another comma before "as cited in" – as shown in the example above: (Rabbitt, 1982, as cited in Lyon et al., 2014).
Your citation for a secondary source is now complete.