Secondary referencing is the process of citing secondhand research in an assignment. Typically, this involves citing a summary of another author’s ideas that is cited in a separate piece of work, for example if an article cites the results of a separate experiment and you wish to cite that summary.
While you can do this, we would recommend citing the original work to ensure that the information is accurate. However, if it is difficult to find the original resource and your confident that the secondary research has summarized it correctly it can be done the following way:
Citation:
(Leach, 2015, cited in The Open University, 2022).
For your reference list you would need to put in the piece the piece you’ve read in this case Open University, Using the guide as appropriate.