Cite using Oxford

You should avoid citing secondary sources whenever possible. If you are unable to access the primary source, you may make an exception and cite the secondary source. In the reference, you need to specify information about both the primary source and the secondary source that you have used.

In the following example, you have read James Wertsch, who quoted the Russian linguist and literary scholar Mikhail Bakhtin, who describes the word in language as half of someone else’s.

• Primary source: Bakhtin, Mikhail, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin: Univ. of Texas P., 1981.
• Secondary source: Wertsch, James. Mind as Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1998.

The following information should be included in the footnote:

• Author of the primary source
• Primary source’s title
• Primary source’s publication year/date
• Page/pages quoted from the primary source
• Quoted in/quoted from
• Author of the secondary source (the source where you found the quotation from Bakhtin)
• Secondary source’s title
• Secondary source’s place of publication and publisher
• Secondary source’s publication year/date
• Page/pages where the primary source is noted/quoted

The following information should be included in the reference list:

• Author of the primary source
• Primary source’s title
• Primary source’s publication year/date
• Secondary source’s place of publication and publisher
• Page/pages quoted from the primary source
• Quoted in/quoted from
• Author of the secondary source (the source where you found the quotation from Bakhtin)
• Secondary source’s title
• Secondary source’s place of publication and publisher
• Secondary source’s publication year/date
• Page/pages where the primary source is noted/quoted