How to Read Scientific Journals for Free

1.  Use your library if you lot accept one!

If y'all are affiliated with a academy, you probably have free library access to the full text of millions of research articles.   The library will have subscribed to these journals on your behalf. The smartest thing you can do for accessing inquiry articles is familiarize yourself with your own library.

• • If you search a database your library will link from the records to the full text if they have it—all you need to do is click through the links.
  • When they practice non accept a copy of an article, a university library can get it for you from some other library. This inter-library loan service is usually free to users.
  • Your library might use a browser extension similar Lean Library or LibKey Nomad to link you to the library subscription or open access total text from wherever you are on the cyberspace.
  • Google Scholar lets you configure your account to get links straight to your library'southward subscription copy of an article.  But remember--side-by-side to library subscriptions for legitimate research, Google Scholar includes links to articles published in predatory and unreliable journals that would be unwise to credit in your own work.  Learn more than about predatory journals.

If you are not affiliated with a university library, there are still ways yous tin can successfully—and legally—go the full text of research manufactures.

two.  Open up Access browser extensions

More and more than inquiry is published Open Admission every bit governments around the world are mandating that research paid for by taxpayer money be freely bachelor to those taxpayers.

Browser extensions have been created to make information technology easy to spot when the full text of an article is free.   Some of the best are Cadre Discovery, Unpaywall and Open Admission Button.

Learn more than about divergence between discovery and access and why it matters for proficient research: Where to search - All-time Practice for Literature Searching - LibGuides at IFIS

iii. Google Scholar

You can search the article title within quotation marks on Google Scholar to encounter if a link to a re-create of the article appears.   If it does, be sure to pay attention to what version of the article you are linking to, to be certain you are getting what yous think yous're getting.  These links tin can pb to an commodity's published version of record, a manuscript version, or to a thesis or conference proceeding with the same championship and author equally the article you expected to find.

4.  Researcher platforms

 A Google Scholar search might pb you to a researcher platform like Academia.edu or ResearchGate.   In that location, if you set up an account, you lot can sometimes download or asking a copy of the text.  Once more, pay attending to which version of the text you get!

5.  Write to the writer

If yous can't get a re-create past other means, you lot can write to an article's corresponding author and (politely!) ask them to send you a re-create. Their contact information, usually an email address, will be listed in the information you discover about the commodity, either in a database record for the article or on the publishing journal'due south folio for it. Many authors are happy to share a copy of their work.

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Three bonus ways that might work depending on where yous live:

1.  A nearby university library might offering access to manufactures even if yous do non piece of work or study there.

Members of the public are sometimes allowed access to academy journal subscriptions through visitor access or a walk-in user service. You lot usually need to utilise the collections from a dedicated reckoner terminal located in a library and may need to make an appointment before you lot go. Do your inquiry before showing upward to brand sure y'all bring the correct documents and equipment (like a flash drive) along.

ii.  Effort your public library

In some countries, public libraries partner with publishers to give the public access to research articles.   In the UK, for case, many public libraries participate in the Access to Inquiry scheme, which gives members of the public on-site admission to over 30 meg academic manufactures. Contact your local public library to learn what is available to you.

3.  Research4Life

In other countries, your institution might have access to a massive drove of inquiry articles and databases through the publisher/library/United Nations agency initiative Research4Life. Check to encounter if y'all already have admission, and if not, if your institution might be eligible to bring together. Membership is only available on an organizational or institutional level.

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Remember—fifty-fifty though yous now take a lot of strategies for finding the full text of articles, enquiry should never exist led by the manufactures yous can access well-nigh hands.

Good inquiry is driven by first figuring out what articles are most relevant to your question and then getting the full text of what you need. One of the all-time ways to do this is to utilize a good discipline-specific database, like FSTA for the sciences of food and health.

Acquire more about difference between discovery and access and why it matters for skilful research:

Photo past Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

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Source: https://www.ifis.org/en/research-skills-blog/research-article-full-text-tips

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