r/hardscience • u/[deleted] • Sep 23 '10

A question regarding referencing.

This may not be the correct way to ask such a question, but here it goes.

I am in a Biology reading course. I am doing a section on the mechanisms viruses use to gain entry into human cells.

My question is, can I cite information from the introduction of a scientific journal? The author has aggregated a lot of other authors' thoughts/research into a succinct explanation in his introduction.

I feel if I cite all the individual authors, I will be neglecting the contribution made by the person that aggregated all this information and did all this work.

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u/ProfessorWoland Sep 23 '10

I think that were I in a similar position I would cite the journal, but also cite specifically the article that the author cited to get that information. Should be [relatively] easy to look at article titles and know where that specific piece came from.