Explainer
How academic publishing, open access and paper identifiers work, in plain English.
9 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.