Thread by @SueReviews

A thread on how to access journal articles, for people who don't have access via an employer...

Obv open access is best, but in the meantime, here are some get-arounds, since I've seen a few folks on here struggling to locate articles / coming up against paywalls

First and most likely to be successful, email the author.

The journal article page will normally include author details.

If not, a google of their full name plus one or two keywords from the article will turn up an institutional webpage with their email address

They might be concerned that you want a copy for use in teaching etc (i.e. you will violate the journal copyright by copying and sharing the pdf).

You can address this by specifying that you want the article for your personal interest only.

Another way to overcome this concern (which might not arise) is by asking for a "pre-print" or the submitted version, rather than the formatted journal pdf

Also, did you know that most journals send authors a link which is good for 50 free downloads or similar?

...so you could try asking them to send you this link. This will only work for a recent or rarely-read article though, so not always a go-er.

Let's imagine though that you can't find the author's email...

You could try contacting them through one of the academic networks which have sprung up.

The big two I know about are ResearchGate: researchgate.net

and Academia.edu
academia.edu

Academia.edu is open to anyone who wants to join for free.

ResearchGate though is more restrictive. You need to enter a work email for a relevant company (e.g. science charity, government organisation) or be a healthcare professional. So not always a good bet.

If you make it on to one of these networks, you can search for author profiles and contact them to request papers.

They may be easier to find this way, and / or more responsive than if you reach out by email.

On the other hand, not all academics are on these platforms and...

...even if they are they just might not respond to your request.

If that happens, what are your options?

First, lots of institutions (i.e. University) websites have open-access copies of their staff's research output.

These are often "pre-prints" which are copies of the submitted manuscript, before it was formatted etc. by the journal. The content should be basically the same

In fact, the Research Excellence Framework in the UK says that we MUST make ALL academic outputs open access in this way for them to eligible for consideration by REF panels. So UK HEIs are doing this well now.

The pages might not be easy to find...

This is my outward-facing University staff page:
ed.ac.uk/clinical-brain…

If you click on Academic Profile and then choose the Research Outputs tab you get to this page:
research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/pers…

Not very attractive or user-friendly, but down the right hand side you will see clickable links to free-to-download versions of the vast majority of my papers - especially those in the last 3 years or so (since the REF rule came in).

There are other dedicated open access sites for academic pre-prints including:

biorxiv.org
psyarxiv.com
osf.io

This all sounds very labour intensive of course - searching multiple places and sending multiple requests.

So maybe the first thing I should have flagged is the Google Scholar "all versions" feature

If you search for a journal article on Google Scholar, on the results page under each article returned there are a few clickable options.

One will say "all 10 versions" (or a different number)

Clicking this opens up a list of all of the results for that article.

Check the details in the right hand column. You're looking for something that says:
[pdf] from {web address}

This will often take you direct to a pre-print on a University website or one of the other open science platforms mentioned above.

I think it is the single quickest way to find a free copy of an article, legally. I use it all the time when I am searching for papers outside of my institution network (which normally auto-connects me to free journal downloads)

Now, if you want to go illegal...

... you truly can't beat Sci-Hub

sci-hub.tw

The site moves a lot as it gets taken down by the authorities but you can normally find it and you should look for the reassuring raven with a red key.

Just paste in the url of a journal article page and voila!

Ok. That's the end of the thread.

Hopefully useful to a few peeps out there. Please do post corrections where I have made errors, and add your suggestions.

thanks!