What is “Open Access Research” and where can I get the PDFs of the papers that I need?
Many papers out there are published in journals and cost money to access – but an increasing portion of papers are actually open access, meaning you can find a PDF version of them to download online for free – legally!
Here are some places you can search:
1. OpenAccessButton
A search engine for free, legal research articles delivered instantly or automatically requested from authors.
2. PaperPanda
PaperPanda helps you download papers
You’ve probably run into this problem – you want to read a paper, but it’s locked behind a paywall.
Maybe you have access to it through your library or university, maybe it’s available to download for free through an open access portal,
maybe the author uploaded a PDF to a website somewhere – but how are you going to find it?
PaperPanda is here to help!
Just click the tiny panda in your toolbar and the panda will run off and find the paper for you.
One-click access to millions of research paper PDFs on thousands of academic websites.
Save time navigating paywalls, logins and redirects.
Once you have the PDF, you can easily download it to your desktop.
3. Google Search
You can try searching on Google – type in your paper’s DOI and add “PDF Download” to find the paper you need.
4. CitationsyArchives
Cite and download millions of papers from Citationsy Archives.