Is this appropriate practice? (writing undergraduate paper)

[kierkegaards]

Let's say I'm doing a paper on a clinical disorder. I am constructing a paragraph to summarize some of the impacts of the disorder. Now let's say I find 3 resources that describe the effects of the disorder.

Resource #1 says:
Disorder leads to A (Author 1; Author 2), B (Author 3), C and D (Author 4; Author 5; Author 6)

Resource #2 says:
Disorder leads to E (Author 7)

Resource #3 says:
Disorder leads to F (Author 8; Author 9), G (Author 10)

Now, say, my paper has a minimum of 5 references. APA format suggests I make direct citations as opposed to indirect citations. So if I want to summarize all this information together, I write in my paper using direct citations (we'll say I want to re-organize the statements to make the list read better):

Disorder leads to A (Author 1; Author 2), E (Author 7), B (Author 3), F (Author 8; Author 9), G (Author 10), C and D (Author 4; Author 5; Author 6)

I now have 10 authors in my reference list and I'm not even through a single paragraph.

Is this appropriate practice for undergraduate/academic writing?

What I can put my finger on, is that while this seems "technically" correct, I am using somebody else's gathering/synthesis of articles and presenting the collection as if I did all the gathering, when in actuality I saw three articles and generated 10 sources from that article. Further, the original synthesis of articles (All the authors used in resource #1) has been mixed up in the other 2 resources, leaving little resemblance to the original form of the collection.

My decision-making process is two fold: cite every fact I gather and cite it directly. If I continue this process through-out my paper, I might have 50 references for an 8 page paper. I've never seen an undergraduate student turn a paper in with 50 references. I am afraid it will make me look suspicious, even though I am trying to follow all APA guidelines.

Thank you.

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[AcronymAllergy]

Let's say I'm doing a paper on a clinical disorder. I am constructing a paragraph to summarize some of the impacts of the disorder. Now let's say I find 3 resources that describe the effects of the disorder.

Resource #1 says:
Disorder leads to A (Author 1; Author 2), B (Author 3), C and D (Author 4; Author 5; Author 6)

Resource #2 says:
Disorder leads to E (Author 7)

Resource #3 says:
Disorder leads to F (Author 8; Author 9), G (Author 10)

Now, say, my paper has a minimum of 5 references. APA format suggests I make direct citations as opposed to indirect citations. So if I want to summarize all this information together, I write in my paper using direct citations (we'll say I want to re-organize the statements to make the list read better):

Disorder leads to A (Author 1; Author 2), E (Author 7), B (Author 3), F (Author 8; Author 9), G (Author 10), C and D (Author 4; Author 5; Author 6)

I now have 10 authors in my reference list and I'm not even through a single paragraph.

Is this appropriate practice for undergraduate/academic writing?

What I can put my finger on, is that while this seems "technically" correct, I am using somebody else's gathering/synthesis of articles and presenting the collection as if I did all the gathering, when in actuality I saw three articles and generated 10 sources from that article. Further, the original synthesis of articles (All the authors used in resource #1) has been mixed up in the other 2 resources, leaving little resemblance to the original form of the collection.

My decision-making process is two fold: cite every fact I gather and cite it directly. If I continue this process through-out my paper, I might have 50 references for an 8 page paper. I've never seen an undergraduate student turn a paper in with 50 references. I am afraid it will make me look suspicious, even though I am trying to follow all APA guidelines.

Thank you.

My opinion, and I believe what APA says as well, is that you should only directly cite the source if you've seen/read it yourself. If you're citing someone else's citation, there's a specific way to do that, although I always forget what it exactly it is. I usually go with some variant of: "Disorder X is associated with negative outcomes in Y (XXX, 2012; as described in ZZZZ, 2012)."

You would include both articles in your references section for the sake of clarity, but if I were the lecturer, I would only credit you for one reference in my above example. The idea being that when instructors require a minimum reference limit, they're usually doing so with the assumption you'll directly read through and evaluate each of those references yourself.

To answer another aspect of your question, though--it's entirely plausible to have 5-7 citations (or more) included in a single paragraph. Heck, depending on what I've written, I've included 5-7 citations after a single sentence at times (ahh, hello again, dissertation; fancy meeting you here).

 

[Pragma]

In undergrad I never cited other people's citations. You cite what you've read. I think APA is implying that you should be gathering empirical sources when drawing conclusions. So if you read a review and they've reviewed relevant articles, instead of basing your entire paper on their interpretation/stats, go back to the original articles, read them, and make sure everything is correct. Then cite the original data.

I'm guessing there's absolutely no way you need 50+ references in 8 pages. Even if your first paragraph has the 10 you mentioned, don't you then go on to talk about them? Those first 10 could probably be carried through the majority of the paper. In my experience, professors don't like to get the feeling that you're just trying to get a huge references list... make sure you're actually talking about and using all the relevant info in the articles.

I personally don't think there is ever an excuse for secondary citations, unless for some reason the original work is unobtainable.

 

[KillerDiller]

I personally don't think there is ever an excuse for secondary citations, unless for some reason the original work is unobtainable.

Yeah, this. Also, "unobtainable" does not mean not being able to get it through inter-library loan fast enough, or other similar situations.

 

[paramour]

^^ What these guys have said. You ONLY cite what you've read... And if you're going to cite something from within an article, then as AA mentioned it's "as cited by your resource that you did read" and it would only count as one reference not umpteen different ones.

 

[Milk Milk Milk]

^^ What these guys have said. You ONLY cite what you've read... And if you're going to cite something from within an article, then as AA mentioned it's "as cited by your resource that you did read" and it would only count as one reference not umpteen different ones.

What a conscientious undergraduate you are! You may not have had it 100% correct but kudos for trying to do it right! I'm fairly certain that a large portion of the students I taught just copy & pasted from Wikipedia...

 

[paramour]

What a conscientious undergraduate you are! You may not have had it 100% correct but kudos for trying to do it right! I'm fairly certain that a large portion of the students I taught just copy & pasted from Wikipedia...

Pfft, your students are more conscientious than mine. My students merely print off the Wiki article (headings and all) and submit it...

 

[WhyMista]

I'm an undergraduate and had to do a case study last semester in my abnormal psych class and the way I cited was the article I read not the person the article cited.

I think the explanation was that if you cite the source you read it from, if the professor or anyone else reading it wants to know more they can simply find the article you cited, and simply backtrack to the original article.

The only time I think I cited both was possibly in part of the dsm that was quoting something else so I cited the dsm as well as the author they used the quote from.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

The idea behind citing work is that you want to make it as easy as possible for people to be able to find the information you're citing/reporting. Thus, even if you didn't read the primary source, you should still find some way to mention the primary source (although you're also going to want to point out that you essentially took another author's word for it in terms of what the findings were). That is if, for example, the reason you're citing one particular paper is because of something they mentioned in their introduction, with the actual finding they're mentioning being based on a different study, then you're going to somehow cite the original study. Part of the reason being that if you're citing a secondary source, said secondary source could have very well incorrectly or incompletely described/summarized the findings of the original study.

The main exception I can think of would be review papers, and these are often also explicitly mentioned as such (e.g., "for a more thorough review of this topic, see XXXX, YYYY, and ZZZZ").

 

[CheetahGirl]

(ahh, hello again, dissertation; fancy meeting you here).

The idea behind citing work is that you want to make it as easy as possible for people to be able to find the information you're citing/reporting. Thus, even if you didn't read the primary source, you should still find some way to mention the primary source (although you're also going to want to point out that you essentially took another author's word for it in terms of what the findings were). That is if, for example, the reason you're citing one particular paper is because of something they mentioned in their introduction, with the actual finding they're mentioning being based on a different study, then you're going to somehow cite the original study. Part of the reason being that if you're citing a secondary source, said secondary source could have very well incorrectly or incompletely described/summarized the findings of the original study.

The main exception I can think of would be review papers, and these are often also explicitly mentioned as such (e.g., "for a more thorough review of this topic, see XXXX, YYYY, and ZZZZ").

The way I understand it, you might cite other people's citations if and only if it's specific to the point you're trying to make, i.e., noting seminal works within the context of your discussion. And if that's your intention, then you note it by writing "as cited in..." (And to further reiterate AA's first comment.)

For example:

In the early 19th century, XXXX introduced this theoretical concept as "........." (as cited in YYYY, 1980).

This clearly states that YYYY did not propose XXXX's theroretical concept, but you are using both XXXX's and YYYY's discussions in building your argument and this implies that you're mainly reading YYYY as your source of information.

Although I agree with others, go to the original source so you can understand the context from which it was originally written. Some authors complain that their works are sometimes misquoted or taken out of context, and the essence of their discussions are lost in the interpretations of their original work.

Also, just google "APA style" you'll get great university websites that will give you proper direction.

 

[WhyMista]

I know here we use refworks where it will automatically cite things for you if you're using something from ebsco or another database.

Only other thing I can think of is that you have to make sure you're citing it according to the medium you viewed it. I believe for example citing the dsm is different if its online vs a hard copy.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

The main exception I can think of would be review papers, and these are often also explicitly mentioned as such (e.g., "for a more thorough review of this topic, see XXXX, YYYY, and ZZZZ").

If I am only making a cursory reference to a certain topic, but I know a source that is a treasure-trove of awesome for that topic...I will do the above.

Another exception could involve not being able to secure the original source (e.g. out of print, obscure foreign journal, etc). The problem with citing someone else's article that cited the original source is that you are taking their word for it instead of reviewing the original source and making your own determination if what was written is in fact accurate.

I go out of my way to avoid citing anything but the original work, but on occasion it is unavoidable. I had this happen when I could only find the abstract from a foreign journal, though a more recent article referenced the foreign journal as the first time XYZ was studied. It wasn't a big deal in regard to the overall topic, but it bugs me to not be able to lay eyes on the actual study and review it for myself. I also would want someone to reference ME if I did the original work, not someone else who happened to reference my work.

 

[00851341032]

Always cite the original source unless either of the following are true:
1. It's okay to cite secondary if that source added something new (for example if that source synthesized the information in a unique way). A good example of this is a meta analysis paper.
2. If the original source is impossible to get. And by impossible to get I really do mean pretty much impossible to get. Such as an old source that only exists in a couple of print forms with no digital copies and the only libraries holding it in stock are inaccessible. Otherwise if it's just annoying to get, too bad find a way or find a new source.

If you MUST cite secondary clearly indicate that it is "as cited in".

The reason for this is that the author who you are citing could have made a mistake (this happens often. Never trust the citation if you have not read it yourself). There also might be a crucial subtlety in interpretation of the secondary source that you wouldn't catch without reading the primary article. Also when people look at citations they expect to find where that information was generated. Imagine how confusing it would be if people cited the thing they found the source in. It would defeat the whole point of using citations since people would look through a chain of sources citing each other citing the source. It would be a giant game of telephone and each versino would probably get slightly more distorted.

The reason APA asks you to cite the original is to reduce this confusion. You must always read the source you cite. So when APA asks you to cite the original they're not just asking you about your reference format, they're telling you that if you want to cite something you must have personally reviewed it yourself to ensure the information really conveys what you are claiming it conveys.