What is Secondary Referencing?
Secondary referencing occurs when you are reading a book or journal article whose author uses facts or information from research done by someone else, and you want to use this to support your own assignment.
How to use Secondary Referencing
There are two ways you can approach a secondary reference:
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You locate the original research so that you can read, use and cite directly from this. This is often the preferred method as this shows that you have widened the research for your own assignment.
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Sometimes the original research may be difficult to find or gain access to. If you are confident that the secondary source is reliable and accurate you can refer to it in your own work using the Harvard rules for secondary referencing (see CTRO for secondary referencing examples).
