Citing a source: theo X (năm), dẫn theo

according to (citation)

Pattern: Theo + [author] (+ [year]), … · (dẫn theo + [source])

C1 · estimateacademicwritten

Typed without accents: theo … (…), dan theo

Vietnamese papers cite a source with theo (according to), the author and the year in brackets: Theo Nguyễn Thị Hoa (2020), …. Vietnamese authors are usually cited by their full name, because the family name alone (Nguyễn, Trần) tells the reader almost nothing. Foreign authors get their surname only: Theo Bandura (1977), …. After the citation and a comma comes what the source says.

The citation can also go at the end of a sentence, in brackets: … (Trần Văn Bình, 2019). When the author is the subject, a verb follows directly: Lê Minh Tuấn (2018) cho rằng …, Smith (2015) chỉ ra rằng … (Smith (2015) pointed out that …).

Dẫn theo means "as cited in": you haven't read the original, only another work that quotes it. It goes inside the brackets, after the original: (Piaget, 1952, dẫn theo Phạm Thu Hà, 2017).

Other words you'll need: và cộng sự (and colleagues, "et al."), trích dẫn (to quote, a citation) and tài liệu tham khảo (references, the list at the end).

Outside papers, theo works the same way without brackets: Theo báo cáo của Bộ Y tế, … (according to a Ministry of Health report, …) in the news, and Theo tôi, … (in my opinion, …) in conversation.

Examples

  • Theo Trần Thị Mai (2021), sinh viên năm nhất gặp nhiều khó khăn nhất trong việc tự quản lý thời gian.

    According to Trần Thị Mai (2021), first-year students struggle most with managing their own time.

  • Lê Minh Tuấn (2019) chỉ ra rằng chi phí vận chuyển là rào cản lớn đối với nông dân.

    Lê Minh Tuấn (2019) pointed out that transport costs are a major barrier for farmers.

  • Học sinh ghi nhớ tốt hơn khi được thực hành ngay sau bài giảng (Phạm Thu Hà và cộng sự, 2022).

    Pupils remember more when they practise straight after the lesson (Phạm Thu Hà et al., 2022).

  • Khái niệm này được đề xuất lần đầu vào những năm 1950 (Smith, 1957, dẫn theo Nguyễn Văn Bình, 2018).

    The concept was first proposed in the 1950s (Smith, 1957, as cited in Nguyễn Văn Bình, 2018).

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