How to Quote from a Secondary Source This page will help students to understand the slight differences in quoting from a secondary source (such as a journal article found during the research process) as compared to quoting from the primary source (the short story the student is interpreting for the research paper).  Below is a copy of the first body paragraph of the sample essay I already gave you.  It is the paragraph dealing with gender conflict.  I have inserted an imaginary secondary source quotation in the paragraph so you can see what it should look like.  Your quotation, of course, will not be imaginary, but from one of the secondary sources you discovered during your research.  The secondary source quotation is found near the end of the paragraph, though you should place yours wherever they are most helpful.  Remember, all you need is one quotation from each of your two secondary sources.  Here is the paragraph: The device of social conflict is used in this story to show how Elisa, because of her gender, is hindered in pursuing a more fulfilling life.  The historical setting ties into this gender conflict because of the ways of the world at this particular point in history.  This story takes place in the early 1900s when women were expected to be at home caring for their families instead of gallivanting across the countryside.  Elisa yearns for the chance to pursue a happier and more fulfilling life.  Her feelings are revealed to us when she tells a traveling salesman “It must be nice.  It must be very nice.  I wish women could do such things” (Steinbeck 231).  Elisa feels trapped and stuck in her present circumstances with Henry, her husband, so the idea of traveling across the country appeals to her.  Although she knows it would be very difficult for a woman to live a life similar to that of the salesman, Elisa still becomes angry when he says, “It ain’t the right kind of a life for a woman.”  She sneers at him in return and asks, “How do you know?  How can you tell?” (Steinbeck 231).  Elisa thinks that because he is a man he cannot fathom the idea that she could actually be capable of handling his type of lifestyle.  Elisa maintains that she is hindered from pursuing an occupation such as his only because she is a woman and not because she is somehow lacking in knowledge and strength.  She makes her feelings known when she says, “You might be surprised to have a rival some time.  I can sharpen scissors too.  And I can beat the dents out of little pots.  I could show you what a woman might do” (Steinbeck 231).  Elisa lets him know that she could be just as good at his profession as he is, if she was only given the chance.  This interpretation of this scene is supported by the critic Joseph Harper, who says that “The reader can clearly see the story’s gender conflict in such scenes as the exchange between Elisa and the traveling repairman, when she insists that she could do such work and he clearly disbelieves her” (Harper 76).  All of these instances of gender conflict show us that, although Elisa desires a different lifestyle, she also realizes that she could never actively pursue one because of the way that women are perceived in this particular period in history.

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