Hi guys,

I have another question if you wouldn't mind helping me out. I'm doing a test for a company at the moment that essentially requires me to write a discussion based on two primary research papers I have been sent. In the brief I have been told to use ONLY the enclosed references, but they have asked that the discussion I write is properly referenced. So, some of the information I have put, like a bit of background etc has been referenced by these two papers from other papers. So would you reference these bits of information from the original papers or just from the two references the company I have been sent? It seems a bit odd to just have two references, but then it's not really scientifically credible to be citing articles I haven't actually read, so I'm a bit confused.

Any opinions???

Thanks, S x

Can you state the history in your review in terms of the two papers. That is you are citing the other papers in terms of what your two authors have said rather than your own views. Then bring your own views in later on the uniques results your two key papers state. This covers you not reading the other papers but still is putting the two main works in a wider context.

E.g. "Both Smith (1) and Jones (2) state previous work has discovered that mice like cheese (3). However, Jones has further expanded upon other important results that show rabbits and rats also like cheese (4,5). For this reason Smith has researched an extensive range of cheeses with mice, whereas Jones has researched a smaller range of cheeses but with more than one rodent species."