What kind of research questions can the written record help answer that surveys or experiments are not likely to be very helpful with?

What will be an ideal response?

Using documents and records allows us access to subjects that may be difficult or impossible to research through direct, personal contact, because they pertain either to the past or to phenomena that are geographically distant. For example, the record keeping of the Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the seventeenth century allowed Erikson to study their approach to crime control, and late eighteenth century records permitted Beard to advance and test a novel interpretation of the framing of the US Constitution. Neither of these studies would have been possible had there been no records available from these periods. Furthermore, while we might be able to analyze the public papers of a large number of public officials (like president, governors, or senators), it would be quite difficult to interview a large number of these officials, and nearly impossible to have them participate in an experiment.