Understanding the ConstitutionThe JSTOR Understanding series is a research tool from JSTOR Labs that connects primary texts with journal articles and book chapters on JSTOR that cite those texts. Building on a previous project, Understanding Shakespeare, this beta release of the Understanding series expands the scope of the tool to include ten key works of British literature, the King James Bible, and all Shakespeare plays and sonnets.
How to use the JSTOR Understanding series
Pick one works by browsing to it or searching for it by author or title.
Read the work -- you’ll notice as you do that next to each passage is a number. That number represents the number of articles and chapters in JSTOR that quote that specific passage.
Click on the passage you want to study. You’ll see a new window with relevant articles and chapters.
Research. Look through the articles and chapters quoting your passage.
You can filter the results you’re seeing by date, content type or whether or not you have access to the documents.
If you’re not sure based on the title and metadata of an article, you can preview how it discusses the passage by looking at the snippets or page-previews.
When you find one you want to read, click the title to go to the article page (where the quoted passages will be highlighted in the text), download the PDF or save it to MyWorkspace
