A Guide to AwesomeStories primary sources, to content rights in general and correct citation formats.
A "primary source" is the best place to get first-hand information. A person who experiences an event, and gives an account of it, is a source of primary information. Maps, photographs, drawings, videotapes, diaries, letters, manuscripts and other similar items can be primary sources.
Someone who interprets primary sources - like a scholar, for example - is creating a secondary source. (See Yale University's web site for a good understanding of the differences between primary and secondary sources.)
It is our policy to link to primary source material whenever possible. That is the reason most of our links are to worldwide national archives, museums, universities, military and government sites as well as other institutions like historical societies and libraries. It is our aim to provide a virtual trip to reliable places where primary sources are maintained. We frequently link to scholarly sources as well. All links serve as footnotes to our stories.
Where helpful, we link to scholarly narratives that explain the subject, or issue, in more detail. Scholarly-narrative links - when we use them - usually appear near the end of our stories, when the reader is more prepared to explore them.
Each recommended link, embedded in the story, takes you directly to the source of the footnoted information. If you would like to visit the main page of the linked site, or to further explore its content, eliminate everything in the URL after the ".edu, .gov, .org," etc., and then press "enter." That will take you to the main site where you can then search for whatever additional information you may need.
We have thoroughly researched appropriate links, but we can not be responsible for content on third-party sites. Wherever possible, people who really know the subject matter have reviewed the stories for accuracy. Our main objective is to help our visitors find their way to some of the best on-line information regarding the profiled subjects - and to have fun at the same time. We hope you have enjoyed your visit.
AwesomeStories is an original content educational tool, which is used by teachers, students and life-long learners. It relies on primary sources, of various types, to enrich the stories.
In addition to its own original content - which includes all stories and all descriptions - AwesomeStories externally links to primary and secondary source materials. It also internally hosts those same types of sources.
Hereafter is an explanation of AwesomeStories' hosted sources, which fall into three categories: Public Domain, Creative Commons and Fair Use (of copyrighted material).
Public Domain
An asset (image, video, writing of any sort, painting, etc.) is in the "public domain" when it is copyright-free.
Such assets can be free of copyright due to passage of time, because the work was never subject to copyright protection or because the creator has removed all restrictions which might otherwise apply.
Creative Commons
With the advent of the Internet - and "open source" objectives - "CC" (Creative Commons) and "GFDL" (GNU Free Documentation) licenses are available.
Creative Commons, in its various licensing applications, covers the use of a creator's works, which COULD be copyrighted but instead are governed by CC licenses. Those licenses vary from freely available (with no restrictions at all) to limited-rights availability (with some limited rights still held by the creator, such as "use without fees but provide attribution").
Fair Use
Copyrighted works may be used in a limited way, without paying a licensing fee to the copyright holder, under fair use guidelines. This is particularly true if the work is used for educational purposes.
Fair use requires that the user must add value to the copyrighted work by providing such things as context, amplifying its meaning or following other guidelines as set forth by governing law. The U.S. Copyright Office provides additional information about "fair use."
By far, assets which are hosted by AwesomeStories (and reside in its extensive database) are from the public domain.
The site also uses Creative Commons-licensed assets. In those cases, the Creative Commons licenses appear in the "credits" section of each hosted asset.
AwesomeStories hosts a limited amount of fair Use assets. In those cases, the fair use designation appears in the credits section of each hosted asset.
To cite this story, using MLA Guidelines:
Bos, Carole D. "Amistad Incident" AwesomeStories.com. Date of access <http://awesomestories.com/famous-trials/amistad>.
IN OTHER WORDS: Author. Title of story. Name of web site. Date of access .
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