Referencing: Which one is more ideal? (cite as from cited or direct cite)?

Question

Well, while carrying out a review of literature for drafting a proposal I found like these in some of previous works (reports).

Some benefits of the “certain thing” on xyz are abc( person1, date) , cde( person2, date), fgh( person3, date) , ijk( person4, date)

and

Some of the more researches in the field include ( person1, date; person2, date; person3, date; person4, date).

Now If I have to include and cite those in my report, which one is better idea? Also, please notice the nature of contents being cited(benefits and previous works).

Option 1: Cite as “as cited in report X” which I read and have only one reference of that report (pros: less references)

Option 2: Go to each report, study and include each one(cited) as separate citation in my report (pros: may be, will look more detail investigations. But is it required in cases like this one?)

Which one should be more ideal? So, what should I do? Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Like user49483 said in the comment, citing a review is considered very bad form. Basically, it is your job to read a lot (reading widely) and cite what is appropriate.

As one who marks papers, I definitely reduce students' scores for citing indirectly like this (and I see it all the time).

When you cite indirectly, you are saying "I know this is important because I am citing it but I did not read this important piece." JeffE said in a comment (which I cannot find) that not citing the original is actually you saying that you could NOT FIND it because if you CAN find it you MUST read and cite it (or something to that effect).

One of the many reasons to read and cite the original is because the third party (reviewer) might be reporting on the original work incorrectly. I saw this one time when someone said a famous author in my field had said something which did not sound like that author at all. So, I re-read the writing which was referenced and it was simply being mis-reported. If a reviewer mis-reports and you cite the review then you are showing that you do not have the proper understanding (and your grade should reflect that lack of understanding).

Is it more work to cite properly? Of course it is. Doing anything properly takes more time but we do it because it is the proper way and taking shortcuts simply leads to poor results in any field or study or work.

Answer 2

The value of a review is the way in which it gathers and synthesizes prior work to form a more complete picture of the field. How you should cite things you learned about through the review depends on whether they are being used as examples of that broader picture or unique elements.

If the work is an example of the broader picture, which it sounds like it is from what you have written, then you need to credit both the review and the individual examples, e.g.:

Other research in this area is thoroughly reviewed in [REVIEW], of which the most relevant to this discussion are [X], [Y], and [Z], because of reasons.

On the other hand, if you really just want to talk about paper X, and the only value of the review to the discussion is that it's where you first stumbled across X, then you only need to cite paper X.

In both cases, however, you need to actually make yourself familiar with the work that you cite, not just take somebody else's word for it, since the review may well have misinterpreted the work or presented a slanted picture since the author had an axe to grind on the subject.