I know someone who is currently studying for two PhDs. The disciplines are related and they come together in his research (Chemistry and Physics) and initially, he was in just one program but somehow managed to find an opportunity for funding in another department so basically he applied and extended part of his research to a second project. So in the end he will end up with two dissertations, one funded and one not funded, which address two related subjects but are sufficiently different.
I am not sure how usual this is though, and I think it depends a lot on how much supervisors are willing to do it.

Well that last comment is a little bit uncalled for. This person expressed their discontent, and yes perhaps they are also partly to blame for not being extra careful, but sometimes we just make mistakes. Implying they are not worthy of funding is kind of ridiculous and certainly mean.

So I am in an Archival and Information Studies MA. First semester and due to a range of personal setbacks, I have not been able to study as much as I wanted. Even so, I have done quite decently so far and I am now writing a paper for one of my elective courses on crowdsourcing in commercial vs. non-profit institutions/platforms and how the two differ. It's a 4000 word paper, so not very long.

Thing is, my professor told me to stick to contemporary crowdsourcing (so not going back to historical origins, evolution, etc) and make my argument. Since my background is in literature, I have been kinda used at having books/movies/texts as primary sources and then using other secondary sources in my research to support my arguments.

I am kind of confused and quite insecure about doing this now however, since basically my "primary" sources will be two websites/platforms, which I obviously cannot do original research on in just a few days. I will have to rely on what is written in publications.
Do you think this is legit? How would you structure such a paper and how you would make sure your research was just that, research, and not just a collage of perspectives from the literature? I know it sounds a little naive, but I am really worried about this.

Thank you all so much!