How Should I Cite Sources in My First Academic Paper?

[gravenewworld]

This is my first academic paper that I am writing completely by myself and need some advice from you published authors out there. The journal I am writing for says that they do not want you to cite any review articles. A review article that I am getting information from has some info I want to put in my paper and has it referenced from the primary source. I feel like if I paraphrase the review in my paper it will be plagiarism since it won't be cited. If I paraphrase the review article but cite the original source will that be OK?

 

[Moonbear]

Just get the original paper that's cited in the review and read that, make sure it says what the review claims it says, and then cite the original work. NEVER take someone else's word for what an article says.

 

[GeorginaS]

What Moonbear said.

 

[waht]

What GeorginaS said.

 

[gravenewworld]

I tried, but many of the references come from medical journals which the university's library does not carry. I'm using a big state university's library too. If they don't have these articles, no place around here will.

 

[jtbell]

many of the references come from medical journals which the university's library does not carry.

Can't the university library get them for you from someplace that does have them? Libraries borrow from or send photocopies to each other all the time, on user request. Or they may have access to an online database that contains the article.

 

[Monique]

Lesson 1: always look up the original publications. Ask the library to get the documents for you.

 

[Andre]

If you give the references we could maybe help finding them

 

[gravenewworld]

I'm just going to sneak into a medical library at my friend's med school. It is going to easily solve all of my problems. Thanks though for the offers and help guys and gals.

 

[Moonbear]

Can't the university library get them for you from someplace that does have them? Libraries borrow from or send photocopies to each other all the time, on user request. Or they may have access to an online database that contains the article.

Exactly. It's very easy to request materials your own library doesn't carry. Our libraries usually do a cost analysis based on how many requests there are in a year for any particular journal. If there are a lot of requests that it's cheaper to get the subscription, our library will have the subscription. If it's something only infrequently requested, then they just get the individual articles ordered for us...the library absorbs the cost as part of their operating budget. With so much accessible online, unless it's a very old article, they can often have it sent within a day. If it's an old article that requires asking someone at another library to make a photocopy, it might take a couple of days (they no longer mail or fax them, just scan them and email a pdf anyway, so it's fast delivery once some student worker does the scan).