Case Study #3: The Constitution
Original Documents
For your American History 121 class you have to write a paper on the U.S. Constitution. You have to include three secondary sources and one primary source. You found two books and an encyclopedia source to use for secondary sources.
Online you found a web site titled Charters of Freedom, from the United States National Archives. From this page you can view and download images and transcripts of the Declaration of Independence, The United States Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. This site is also packed with information about the history of the documents and what impact they've had. 
In research terms, this web site is known as a gold mine. That's GOLD MINE. All the information on the site about the documents is secondary information. The image scans and transcripts of the original documents are acceptable as primary sources. 
It's likely that your instructor will only accept primary sources from the internet if the source is from a trusted, reliable web site. Don't be duped: evaluate sites before you use the information.
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