How to Read Research Papers for Free, Legally: 7 Ways That Work

A single journal article often costs $30 to $50 to download, which is a lot for something you may only need to skim. The good news is that a large share of research papers can be read free of charge and entirely legally. The free copies exist; they are just scattered across thousands of websites. This guide lists the routes that work, starting with the fastest.

1. Look for an open-access copy

Many paywalled papers have a second, free copy that the authors placed in a university repository or a subject archive. Funders and universities increasingly require this, and most publishers allow it. The copy is easy to miss because it lives on a different website from the journal.

Paste the paper's DOI, link or title into the finder on our home page and it checks the open-access indexes for you. If a free copy exists anywhere, you get a direct link to it. If you are unsure what a DOI is, see what a DOI is and where to find it.

2. Check the preprint servers

In physics, mathematics, computer science, economics and, increasingly, biology and medicine, authors post their papers on preprint servers before or alongside journal publication. The main ones are arXiv, bioRxiv, medRxiv, SSRN and PsyArXiv. A preprint is the authors' own version, so it may differ a little from the final article, but the substance is usually the same. Our guide to the kinds of open access explains how the versions differ.

3. Search PubMed Central

For medicine and the life sciences, PubMed Central is a free archive of full-text articles run by the US National Institutes of Health. Research the NIH funds has to be deposited there, and many journals deposit all of their articles. Europe PMC is its European counterpart and covers much of the same material.

4. Email the author

Researchers want their work read, and they are generally allowed to send a copy to someone who asks. A short, polite email to the corresponding author works more often than most people expect. We have a guide with a template: how to email an author for a copy of a paper.

5. Use a library

If you are a student or member of staff at a university, your library almost certainly subscribes to the journal; log in through the library website rather than going to the publisher directly. If you are not, a public library can often help. Many offer inter-library loan, where they obtain a copy of an article for you, sometimes free and sometimes for a small fee. Some universities also give alumni access to part of their collection.

6. Try Google Scholar

Search for the paper's title in Google Scholar and look to the right of the result for a link marked [PDF] or [HTML]. The "All versions" link under a result lists every copy Scholar knows about, which sometimes includes one on an author's own web page that the open-access indexes have missed.

7. Check for access schemes

Some groups of readers have free access through special programmes. Research4Life gives institutions in lower-income countries access to tens of thousands of journals. Some publishers also let authors and subscribers create free read-only links to an article, and those links are often shared on social media or the author's website.

What about pirate sites?

Sites that distribute papers without the publishers' permission exist, and courts in several countries have ruled against them for copyright infringement. They are blocked in a number of countries and often out of date. This site does not use them and does not need to: the routes above cover a large share of what people look for, and they will still work next year.

Which route should you try first?

Start with the finder, because it takes seconds and covers routes 1 to 3 at once. If it finds nothing, email the author and ask your library in parallel; one of the two usually comes through within a few days.