How to read research papers for free
Practical guides to getting research papers legally and for free: how open access works, where free copies live and what to do when there is none. Search the guides or browse by topic.
20 guides
Journal Embargo Periods Explained: When Does a Paywalled Paper Become Free?
What a journal embargo period is, how long embargoes last, why some papers are free immediately, and how to find out when a paper will have a free copy.
How to Cite a Research Paper in APA, MLA, Chicago and Harvard
How to cite a journal article in APA, MLA, Chicago and Harvard style, with a worked example in each, and which version to cite when you read a free copy.
Preprint vs Published Paper: What Is the Difference, and Can You Cite a Preprint?
How a preprint differs from an accepted manuscript and a published paper, how much preprints change before publication, and when and how to cite one.
What Is Peer Review, and How Can You Tell If an Article Is Peer Reviewed?
What peer review is, how the process works, and five practical checks to tell whether a journal article has been peer reviewed, plus how to spot a retraction.
How to Read JSTOR Articles for Free, Legally
Legal ways to read JSTOR articles without a subscription: the free reading account and its limit, open content, public and university libraries and alumni access.
How to Read IEEE Papers for Free, Legally
Legal ways to read a paywalled IEEE Xplore paper: author copies on arXiv and university sites, open-access journals, conference archives and library access.
How to Read Nature Articles for Free, Legally
Legal ways to read a paywalled paper from Nature and other Springer Nature journals: repository copies, preprints, free read-only links and open-access titles.
How to Read ScienceDirect and Elsevier Articles for Free, Legally
Legal ways to read a paywalled Elsevier article on ScienceDirect: open-access and open-archive articles, repository copies, author share links and more.
Why Are Research Papers Behind Paywalls? How Academic Publishing Works
Why journal articles cost money when the research is often publicly funded: who pays for academic publishing, who gets paid, and how open access is changing it.
The Best Free Tools for Finding Research Papers
A comparison of the free search engines and tools for finding research papers: Google Scholar, Unpaywall, CORE, BASE, Semantic Scholar, Europe PMC and DOAJ.
How to Read a Research Paper: A Guide for Students and Non-Experts
A practical method for reading a scientific paper: what each section is for, the order to read them in, and what to do with the parts you do not understand.
How to Get Research Papers Through a Library, Even If You Are Not a Student
How to read paywalled journal articles through a library: university logins, alumni and walk-in access, public libraries and inter-library loan.
PubMed vs PubMed Central: How to Get Free Full-Text Medical Papers
The difference between PubMed and PubMed Central, what PMID and PMCID numbers mean, and how to find the free full text of a medical or life-science paper.
What Is arXiv? How to Find and Read Preprints for Free
What arXiv is, which subjects it covers, how arXiv identifiers and versions work, whether its papers are peer reviewed, and how to find the arXiv copy of a paper.
How to Find Free PDFs on Google Scholar
How to use Google Scholar to find a free PDF of a research paper: the PDF links, the All versions list, library links and the search tricks that help.
How to Email an Author for a Copy of Their Paper (With a Template)
How to ask a researcher for a copy of a paywalled paper: who to write to, how to find their email address, what to say, and a short template you can copy.
Open Access Explained: Gold, Green, Hybrid, Bronze and Diamond
What open access means, how gold, green, hybrid, bronze and diamond open access differ, and what a preprint or accepted manuscript is compared with the published paper.
What Is a DOI? How to Find One and Use It to Get a Paper
A plain-English explanation of what a DOI is, what the numbers mean, where to find the DOI of a research paper and how to use it to find a free copy.
Legal Sci-Hub Alternatives: 7 Ways to Get Papers That Still Work
Sci-Hub has added no new papers since 2020 and is blocked in many countries. These legal alternatives find free copies of research papers, including recent ones.
How to Read Research Papers for Free, Legally: 7 Ways That Work
Seven legal ways to read a paywalled research paper without paying: open-access copies, preprints, PubMed Central, emailing the author, libraries and more.