I would be grateful for answers:

1) Is it ok to cite someone's PhD thesis? If so, how?

2) There is one small section in a journal article that cites a book. I can't get hold of that book, but the info on that paragraph is very important for me. How do I reference this?

Hi 404

1) Yes it's fine to cite somebody's thesis. If you are using Endnote or similar, you'll find you can put in a ref as a thesis (IIRC, not done this for a while. It's usually something like

Author AB. The name of the thesis. Date. Type of thesis (PhD/MD/other). Name of Uni, city, country.

2) If you cannot source the original reference then you can cite in the following way:

The stuff you need to cite (Jones et al 2000, cited by Smith et al, 2003)

Or

The stuff you need to cite (1 cited by 2)

Jones (or 1) is the original stuff in the book you cannot get hold of and Smith (or 2) is the paragraph you've read. If you cite in this way, rather than just putting down the paragraph ref, you are putting the onus on the 'Smith' to have cited the info correctly in the first place i.e. any error in the interpretation of the original material is Smiths, not yours!

1) I guess it depends on which reference conventions you use but that's what mine says (MHRA - Modern Humanities Research Association):
The titles of unpublished theses and dissertations should be in roman type within single quotation marks; capitalization should follow the conventions of the language in question (see 5.4). The degree level (where known), university, and date should be in parentheses:
R. J. Ingram, ‘Historical Drama in Great Britain from 1935 to the Present’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of London, Birkbeck College, 1988), p. 17.
Diedrich Diederischen, ‘Shakespeare und das deutsche Märchendrama’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Hamburg, 1952), p. 91.
Mary Taylor, ‘The Legend of Apollonius of Tyre in Spanish and French Literature before 1500’ (unpublished master’s thesis, University of Manchester, 1977), pp. 45–47.
James-Louis Boyle, ‘Marcel Proust et les écrivains anglais’ (unpublished thesis, University of Paris, 1953), p. 22.

thank you for your replies. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday