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14 Websites to Download Research Paper for Free – 2024

Download Research Paper for Free

2. z-library, 3. library genesis, 4. unpaywall, 5. gettheresearch.org, 6. directory of open access journals (doaj), 7. researcher, 8. science open, 10. internet archive scholar, 11. citationsy archives, 13. dimensions, 14. paperpanda – download research papers for free.

Collecting and reading relevant research articles to one’s research areas is important for PhD scholars. However, for any research scholar, downloading a research paper is one of the most difficult tasks. You must pay for access to high-quality research materials or subscribe to the journal or publication. In this article, ilovephd lists the top 14 websites to download free research papers, journals, books, datasets, patents, and conference proceedings downloads.

Download Research Paper for Free – 2024

14 best free websites to download research papers are listed below:

Sci-Hub is a website link with over 64.5 million academic papers and articles available for direct download. It bypasses publisher paywalls by allowing access through educational institution proxies. To download papers Sci-Hub stores papers in its repository, this storage is called Library Genesis (LibGen) or library genesis proxy 2024.

Visit: Working Sci-Hub Proxy Links – 2024

Z-Library is a clone of Library Genesis, a shadow library project that allows users to share scholarly journal articles, academic texts, and general-interest books via file sharing (some of which are pirated). The majority of its books come from Library Genesis, however, some are posted directly to the site by individuals.

Individuals can also donate to the website’s repository to make literature more widely available. Z-library claims to have more than 10,139,382 Books and 84,837,646 Articles articles as of April 25, 2024.

It promises to be “the world’s largest e-book library” as well as “the world’s largest scientific papers repository,” according to the project’s page for academic publications (at booksc.org). Z-library also describes itself as a donation-based non-profit organization.

Visit: Z-Library – You can Download 70,000,000+ scientific articles for free

The Library Genesis aggregator is a community aiming at collecting and cataloging item descriptions for the most part of scientific, scientific, and technical directions, as well as file metadata. In addition to the descriptions, the aggregator contains only links to third-party resources hosted by users. All information posted on the website is collected from publicly available public Internet resources and is intended solely for informational purposes.

Visit: libgen.li

Unpaywall harvests Open Access content from over 50,000 publishers and repositories, and makes it easy to find, track, and use. It is integrated into thousands of library systems, search platforms, and other information products worldwide. In fact, if you’re involved in scholarly communication, there’s a good chance you’ve already used Unpaywall data.

Unpaywall is run by OurResearch, a nonprofit dedicated to making scholarships more accessible to everyone. Open is our passion. So it’s only natural our source code is open, too.

best site to download research papers free

Visit: unpaywall.org

GetTheResearch.org is an Artificial Intelligence(AI) powered search engine for search and understand scientific articles for researchers and scientists. It was developed as a part of the Unpaywall project. Unpaywall is a database of 23,329,737 free scholarly Open Access(OA) articles from over 50,000 publishers and repositories, and make it easy to find, track, and use.

Visit: Find and Understand 25 Million Peer-Reviewed Research Papers for Free

DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) was launched in 2003 with 300 open-access journals. Today, this independent index contains almost 17 500 peer-reviewed, open-access journals covering all areas of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Open-access journals from all countries and in all languages are accepted for indexing.

DOAJ is financially supported by many libraries, publishers, and other like-minded organizations. Supporting DOAJ demonstrates a firm commitment to open access and the infrastructure that supports it.

Visit: doaj.org

The researcher is a free journal-finding mobile application that helps you to read new journal papers every day that are relevant to your research. It is the most popular mobile application used by more than 3 million scientists and researchers to keep themselves updated with the latest academic literature.

Visit: 10 Best Apps for Graduate Students

ScienceOpen is a discovery platform with interactive features for scholars to enhance their research in the open, make an impact, and receive credit for it. It provides context-building services for publishers, to bring researchers closer to the content than ever before. These advanced search and discovery functions, combined with post-publication peer review, recommendation, social sharing, and collection-building features make ScienceOpen the only research platform you’ll ever need.

Visit: scienceopen.com

OA.mg is a search engine for academic papers. Whether you are looking for a specific paper, or for research from a field, or all of an author’s works – OA.mg is the place to find it.

Visit: oa.mg

Internet Archive Scholar (IAS) is a full-text search index that includes over 25 million research articles and other scholarly documents preserved in the Internet Archive. The collection spans from digitized copies of eighteenth-century journals through the latest Open Access conference proceedings and pre-prints crawled from the World Wide Web.

Visit: Sci hub Alternative – Internet Archive Scholar

Citationsy was founded in 2017 after the reference manager Cenk was using at the time, RefMe, was shut down. It was immediately obvious that the reason people loved RefMe — a clean interface, speed, no ads, simplicity of use — did not apply to CiteThisForMe. It turned out to be easier than anticipated to get a rough prototype up.

Visit: citationsy.com

CORE is the world’s largest aggregator of open-access research papers from repositories and journals. It is a not-for-profit service dedicated to the open-access mission. We serve the global network of repositories and journals by increasing the discoverability and reuse of open-access content.

It provides solutions for content management, discovery, and scalable machine access to research. Our services support a wide range of stakeholders, specifically researchers, the general public, academic institutions, developers, funders, and companies from a diverse range of sectors including but not limited to innovators, AI technology companies, digital library solutions, and pharma.

Visit: core.ac.uk

Dimensions cover millions of research publications connected by more than 1.6 billion citations, supporting grants, datasets, clinical trials, patents, and policy documents.

Dimensions is the most comprehensive research grants database that links grants to millions of resulting publications, clinical trials, and patents. It

provides up-to-the-minute online attention data via Altmetric, showing you how often publications and clinical trials are discussed around the world. 226m Altmetric mentions with 17m links to publications.

Dimensions include datasets from repositories such as Figshare, Dryad, Zenodo, Pangaea, and many more. It hosts millions of patents with links to other citing patents as well as to publications and supporting grants.

Visit: dimensions.ai

PaperPanda is a Chrome extension that uses some clever logic and the Panda’s detective skills to find you the research paper PDFs you need. Essentially, when you activate PaperPanda it finds the DOI of the paper from the current page, and then goes and searches for it. It starts by querying various Open Access repositories like OpenAccessButton, OaDoi, SemanticScholar, Core, ArXiV, and the Internet Archive. You can also set your university library’s domain in the settings (this feature is in the works and coming soon). PaperPanda will then automatically search for the paper through your library. You can also set a different custom domain in the settings.

Visit: PaperPanda

I hope, this article will help you to know some of the best websites to download research papers and journals for free.

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15 Best Websites to Download Research Papers for Free

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Is your thirst for knowledge limited by expensive subscriptions? Explore the best websites to download research papers for free and expand your academic reach.

Today, navigating through the academic terrain often feels like being stuck in an intellectual desert, parched for knowledge.

With paywalls acting like impenetrable fortresses, accessing scholarly articles becomes a herculean task. However, a beacon of hope exists in the form of free-access platforms, quenching our thirst for intellectual wisdom. Let’s set sail on this scholarly journey.

Table of Contents

Do you recall the Z Library, a once-prominent source of free academic resources? While its seizure by the FBI was a stark reminder of copyright considerations, it also marked a transformative phase in the digital academic landscape.

Today’s champions of academia aren’t just about offering free access, they uphold ethics and copyright respectability. Let’s delve into these repositories that are reshaping the academia world. You can download free research papers from any of the following websites.

Best Websites to Download Research Papers

#1. sci-hub – best for accessing paywalled academic papers.

Unlocks millions of academic articles
Known as the ‘Robin Hood’ of research
Free and easy to use

Sci-Hub is the defiant maverick of the academic sphere. Often termed the “Pirate Bay of Science,” it presents an unconventional solution to the paywall barrier, freely providing access to a vast range of scholarly literature.

What are the benefits of Sci-Hub?

Unlimited Access: Unlocks paywalled research papers
Extensive Database: Hosts a wide variety of academic disciplines
User-friendly: Features a simple interface and easy navigation

Despite its contentious standing, Sci-Hub offers an invaluable service to knowledge-seekers. While navigating the tightrope between access and legality, it represents a game-changing force in the world of academic research.

Source: https://www.sci-hub.se

#2. Library Genesis (Libgen) – Best for a Wide Range of Books and Articles

Credits: Wikipedia, Best Websites to Download Research Papers for Free,

Houses a comprehensive collection of books and articles
Allows downloading in various formats
Free and efficient

If the pursuit of knowledge was a grand voyage, Library Genesis, or Libgen, would undoubtedly be your trusty compass and map. Like the vast sea brimming with hidden treasures, Libgen is an expansive library with riches ranging from academic papers to rare textbooks, and even popular fiction.

It’s not just a repository, but a vibrant confluence of multiple disciplines and interests, catering to the unique intellectual appetite of each knowledge seeker.

#3. Unpaywall – Best for Legal Open Access Versions of Scholarly Articles

Credits: Unpaywall, Best Websites to Download Research Papers for Free,

Provides legal access to millions of academic articles
Fast and user-friendly
Free and ethically sound

Unpaywall is the stately knight of the academic world. Upholding the banner of ethics, it gallantly charges through the battlefield of paywalls, breaking barriers and making scholarly literature accessible.

Unpaywall doesn’t just give you a key; it gives you a legal, ethically sound key to the treasure chest of academic wisdom. This website is not merely a tool; it’s a testament to the idea that knowledge should be accessible to all, without compromising on legality and respect for authorship.

What are the benefits of Unpaywall?

Legal Access: Enables legitimate access to research papers
Wide Reach: Features an extensive, continuously updated database
Cost-free: All services are available without any charges

For those who believe in the harmony of free access and ethical consideration, Unpaywall is a guiding star. It reflects an ideal blend of accessibility, legality, and respect for intellectual property .

Source: https://unpaywall.org

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#4. Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) – Best for Peer-Reviewed Open Access Journals

Credits: DOAJ, Best Websites to Download Research Papers for Free,

Repository of high-quality, open-access, peer-reviewed journals
Covers all subjects and many languages
Free to use

DOAJ is one of the most popular open access repositories that offers peer-reviewed, open-access journals across numerous subjects and languages. More than just a tool, DOAJ symbolizes the collaborative ethos of academia, fostering a global exchange of knowledge with no entry ticket.

What are the benefits of DOAJ?

High Quality: Ensures all listed journals are peer-reviewed for quality assurance
Wide Range: Features journals covering numerous subjects and languages
Free Access: No cost attached to access these resources

The DOAJ, in its essence, manifests the democratic spirit of academic research. It’s an indispensable platform for researchers seeking high-quality, peer-reviewed, open-access resources across a wide range of subjects.

Source: https://doaj.org

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#5. Open Access Button – Best for Free Versions of Paywalled Articles

Finds legal free versions of paywalled articles
Fast, simple, and reliable
Free and respects copyright laws

Just like the rush of adrenaline you feel when you find a forgotten $20 bill in your old jeans, Open Access Button brings the same excitement to the academic sphere.

It is your trusty detective, sniffing out legal, freely accessible versions of those pesky paywalled articles. More than just a tool, it represents an ethical, innovative solution to the widespread issue of paywall barricades in academic research.

What are the benefits of Open Access Button?

Legal & Free Access: Hunts for legal, open versions of paywalled research papers
User-friendly: Easy to use with swift results
Ethical: Respects and upholds copyright laws

Open Access Button serves as the ethical bridge between knowledge seekers and the scholarly content they need. Its commitment to providing free, legal access upholds the values of respect and fairness in academia.

Source: https://openaccessbutton.org

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#6. Science Open – Best for a Wide Variety of Open Access Scientific Research

Credits: Science Open, Best Websites to Download Research Papers for Free,

Features over 60 million articles
Facilitates academic networking and discussion
Free and comprehensive

Consider Science Open as a bustling town square in the city of scientific knowledge, where scholars from all walks of life gather, discuss, and dissect over 60 million articles.

It’s not just like the best university libraries, it’s a collaborative arena for scientists, researchers, and curious minds alike. By fostering open discussions and peer reviews, it not only disseminates information but also nourishes a robust, global scientific community.

What are the benefits of Science Open?

Vast Library: Provides access to over 60 million research items
Collaborative Platform: Encourages networking, discussion, and public peer review
Comprehensive: Covers a wide array of scientific disciplines

Science Open is more than a tool; it’s a community fostering open scientific discourse. Its vast resources and collaborative platform make it a vital player in modern scientific research.

Source: https://www.scienceopen.com

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#7. CORE – Best for Open Access Content Across Disciplines

Credits: CORE, Best Websites to Download Research Papers for Free,

Harvests research papers from repositories worldwide
Features millions of open access articles

CORE is like a skilled artisan, meticulously crafting a vast tapestry of open-access content across various disciplines. By aggregating data from repositories worldwide, it weaves together a rich, comprehensive picture of global research.

This tool doesn’t merely provide access; it delivers an integrated research experience that pushes the frontiers of academia and knowledge exploration.

What are the benefits of CORE?

Wide Coverage: Harvests data from global repositories, providing extensive coverage
Open Access: Features millions of open access research papers
User-friendly: Simple, efficient interface for seamless navigation

With its unparalleled aggregation and comprehensive access, CORE embodies the grand orchestra of global research. It stands as an essential tool in the modern researcher’s toolkit.

Source: https://core.ac.uk

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#8. ERIC – Best for Education Research

Specialized in education research literature
Offers a wide range of resources, including articles, reports, and studies
Free and tailored for educators and researchers

Like an esteemed professor, ERIC curates and presents a wealth of scholarly resources for educators, policymakers, and researchers. It serves as a guiding light, illuminating the path to evidence-based practices and enriching the field of education.

What are the benefits of ERIC?

Focus on Education: Offers a specialized collection of education research literature
Comprehensive Resources: Includes articles, reports, studies, and more
Tailored for Educators: Provides valuable insights and tools specifically for educators and researchers

ERIC stands as a pillar in the realm of education research, equipping educators with the knowledge and evidence they need to drive innovation and improve educational practices.

Source: https://eric.ed.gov

#9. PaperPanda – Best for Free Access to Research Papers

Credits: PaperPanda, Best Websites to Download Research Papers for Free,

Provides free access to research papers across multiple disciplines
Offers convenient search and download options
Free and user-friendly

PaperPanda is always there to assist you in your quest for knowledge. With its vast collection of research papers spanning various disciplines, PaperPanda ensures that you have the resources you need right at your fingertips.

It’s like having a personal research assistant, guiding you through the maze of scholarly literature.

What are the benefits of PaperPanda?

Wide Range of Disciplines: Offers research papers across multiple fields of study
Easy Search and Download: Provides convenient search and download options
User-Friendly Interface: Makes the research process smooth and accessible

PaperPanda, with its user-friendly approach and expansive collection, simplifies the journey of accessing research papers. It empowers researchers and knowledge enthusiasts by putting a world of information within reach.

Source: https://paperpanda.app

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#10. Citationsy Archives – Best for Research Papers from Numerous Fields

Credits: Citationsy, Best Websites to Download Research Papers for Free,

Curates a vast collection of research papers
Offers easy-to-use citation and bibliography management tools

As you navigate through the vast corridors of this digital library, you’ll discover a wealth of academic resources from diverse fields.

Citationsy Archives provides access to valuable research papers. It also equips you with powerful citation and bibliography management tools, ensuring that your scholarly journey remains organized and efficient.

What are the benefits of Citationsy?

Extensive Collection: Curates a wide variety of research papers from numerous fields
Citation Management: Offers user-friendly tools for organizing citations and creating bibliographies
Comprehensive Support: Helps researchers streamline their academic workflow

Citationsy Archives serves as a haven for researchers seeking a comprehensive collection of research papers. Its integrated citation and bibliography management tools make it an indispensable companion in the scholarly pursuit.

Source: https://citationsy.com

#11. OA.mg – Best for Direct Download Links to Open Access Papers

Credits: OA.mg, Best Websites to Download Research Papers for Free,

Provides direct download links to open access papers
Offers a straightforward, no-frills interface

OA.mg presents a no-nonsense approach to providing direct download links to scholarly articles, ensuring that you have immediate access to the knowledge you seek. With its simplicity and efficiency, OA.mg streamlines the process of finding and accessing open access papers.

What are the benefits of OA.mg?

Direct Download Links: Offers quick access to open access papers without unnecessary hurdles
Simplicity: Features a straightforward interface for effortless navigation
Efficient Access: Saves time by bypassing intermediary steps in accessing research papers

OA.mg stands as a reliable conduit between knowledge seekers and open access papers. Its focus on direct download links enhances the efficiency of accessing scholarly resources.

Source: https://oa.mg

#12. Social Science Research Network (SSRN) – Best for Social Sciences and Humanities Research

Credits: SSRN, Best Websites to Download Research Papers for Free,

Specializes in social sciences and humanities research
Hosts a vast collection of scholarly papers, working papers, and preprints
Free and tailored for researchers in these fields

This digital haven caters to the intellectual curiosity of scholars in these fields, providing access to a wealth of scholarly papers, working papers, and preprints.

SSRN fosters collaboration and knowledge-sharing, creating a vibrant community at the forefront of social sciences and humanities research.

What are the benefits of SSRN?

Specialized Content: Focuses on social sciences and humanities research
Diverse Collection: Offers scholarly papers, working papers, and preprints
Research Community: Facilitates collaboration and knowledge-sharing among researchers

SSRN serves as an invaluable resource for researchers in the social sciences and humanities, fostering a community that drives innovation and advancements in these fields.

Source: https://www.ssrn.com

#13. Project Gutenberg – Best for Free Access to eBooks

Credits: VA News, Best Websites to Download Research Papers for Free,

Houses a vast collection of free eBooks
Covers a wide range of subjects and genres
Free and easily accessible

Project Gutenberg is a paradise for book lovers and knowledge enthusiasts. This impressive collection of free eBooks spans various subjects and genres, from classic literature to scientific works.

Project Gutenberg opens the doors to a world of literary exploration, providing access to timeless wisdom and captivating stories that shape our intellectual landscape.

What are the benefits of Project Gutenberg?

Extensive eBook Collection: Offers a vast selection of free eBooks
Diverse Subjects and Genres: Covers a wide range of topics and literary genres
Free and Accessible: Provides easy access to literary works without any cost

Project Gutenberg serves as a testament to the power of literature and the accessibility of knowledge. It enables readers worldwide to embark on intellectual journeys through its extensive collection of free eBooks.

Source: https://www.gutenberg.org

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#14. PLOS (Public Library of Science) – Best for Open Access to Scientific and Medical Research

Publishes open access scientific and medical research
Features high-quality, peer-reviewed articles
Free and promotes global scientific collaboration

As a leading publisher of open access research, PLOS fosters the dissemination of cutting-edge scientific discoveries to a global audience.

With a commitment to quality and peer-reviewed excellence, PLOS supports the collaborative spirit of scientific advancement, empowering researchers and scientists to share their findings freely.

What are the benefits of PLOS?

Open Access Publications: Provides free access to high-quality scientific and medical research
Peer-Reviewed Excellence: Ensures rigorous peer review for published articles
Global Scientific Collaboration: Facilitates knowledge sharing and collaboration among researchers worldwide

PLOS stands at the forefront of the open access movement, promoting the free flow of scientific and medical knowledge. It represents the spirit of collaboration and transparency, empowering researchers to push the boundaries of human understanding.

Source: https://plos.org

#15. arXiv.org – Best for Preprints in Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science

Credits: arXiv, Best Websites to Download Research Papers for Free,

Specializes in hosting preprints in science, mathematics, and computer science
Provides early access to cutting-edge research
Free and fosters collaboration among researchers

arXiv.org is the epicenter of preprints in science, mathematics, and computer science. This virtual haven serves as an incubator for innovative ideas, granting researchers early access to the latest findings and nurturing collaboration within these rapidly evolving disciplines.

What are the benefits of arXiv?

Cutting-Edge Research: Provides access to preprints, allowing early exploration of groundbreaking ideas
Interdisciplinary Reach: Spans science, mathematics, and computer science, fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration
Global Knowledge Exchange: Encourages the sharing of research findings and facilitates collaboration among researchers worldwide

arXiv.org stands as a catalyst for scientific progress, offering a glimpse into the future of research. By providing early access to preprints, it fuels innovation, collaboration, and the acceleration of knowledge in science, mathematics, and computer science.

Source: https://arxiv.org

In a world where knowledge is king, accessing a research paper shouldn’t feel like an impossible task. Thanks to these free and innovative websites, we can escape the barriers of paywalls and dive into a vast ocean of intellectual wealth.

From the rebellious spirit of Sci-Hub to the collaborative nature of PLOS, these digital champions are reshaping the academic landscape.

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Oa.mg is a search engine for academic papers, specialising in open access. we have over 250 million papers in our index..

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Top 11 Websites for Free Research Paper Downloads

For PhD researchers, it’s critical to gather and read research publications that are pertinent to their areas of study. However, downloading a research paper is one of the most challenging chores for any research scholar. To gain access to high-quality research resources, one needs to pay a fee or subscribe to a journal or publication. In this post, We have shown you how to get a research paper for free.

Sci-Hub was originally launched by Alexandra Elbakyan, a Kazakhstani graduate student, in 2011. It is a website known for providing access to various academic articles and papers using educational institution access and its own collection of downloaded articles and papers. In fact, you can download almost 99% of all scientific papers and articles in existence on Sci-Hub.

Many internet service providers (especially in developed countries) have blocked it at present. Sci-Hub’s own statistics show that the chances of a request for download being successful are 99%. It processes more than 200,000 requests every day.

How to use Sci-Hub?

Visit https://sci-hub.se/ (Use a VPN to access it if blocked.) You can also checkout Visit: Working Sci-Hub Proxy Links – 2022 ( https://www.ilovephd.com/working-sci-hub-proxy-links-updated/ )
Enter the full name of the DOI, URL, or URL in the paper that you would like to download.
Select”Open” or click the “Open” click.

2. Library Genesis

Library Genesis (Libgen) is a file-sharing based shadow library website for scholarly journal articles, academic and general-interest books, images, comics, audiobooks, and magazines. The site enables free access to content that is otherwise paywalled or not digitized elsewhere. This website was threatened with legal action by Elsevier one of the largest publishing companies of technical, scientific medical and scientific research papers in the year 2015.

You can find a research paper or book on Library Genesis by following the steps given below:

Visit Library Genesis’ official website (libgen.li).
Type the name of whatever you’re looking for into the search field, and click the “search!” button.
Click on the name of a book or research paper in the list of results, and choose one of the available mirrors.
Proceed to download the book or research paper and save it to your device.

3. Z-Library

The steps to download Z-Library books for free are as follows:

Step 1: Go to the Z-Library website ( https://singlelogin.me/ ) and Sign In.

Step 2: Browse through the categories or use the search bar to find the book you want.

Step 3: Click on the book to open it.

Step 4: Click on the download button to download the book.

4. Unpaywall

This is a huge database that contains more than 21 million academic works from over fifty thousand content repositories as well as publishers. The content in the database is replicated from government resources so downloading them is legal. The authors claim they are able to access around 80-85 percent of all scientific papers accessible on their website.

You can utilize Google’s Chrome extension to quickly get them at any time.

In order to do this, you have to follow the instructions listed below:

Visit https://unpaywall.org/products/extension
Select on the “Add the Chrome” button. Chrome” option.
Simply click “Add the store to Chrome” in the Chrome Web Store page in addition.
Keep an eye on the extension until it is installed.
After installing the extension, it will work automatically and will appear whenever you go to the site of a paywalled research paper in the database of Unpaywall’s open databases. All you have just click on the green Unpaywall button to allow the article to be displayed immediately.

5. Directory of Open Access Journals

A multidisciplinary, community-curated directory, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) gives researchers access to high-quality peer-reviewed journals. It has archived more than two million articles from 17,193 journals, allowing you to either browse by subject or search by keyword.

The site was launched in 2003 with the aim of increasing the visibility of OA scholarly journals online. Content on the site covers subjects from science, to law, to fine arts, and everything in between. DOAJ has a commitment to “increase the visibility, accessibility, reputation, usage and impact of quality, peer-reviewed, OA scholarly research journals globally, regardless of discipline, geography or language.”

It can be used to search for and download research papers for free:

Visit: https://doaj.org/
Input your keywords in the search field , then hit enter.
Choose the research paper you wish to download.
Hit on the “Full Text” button that is located just below the abstract.

6.ScienceOpen

ScienceOpen offers a professional network platform for academics that gives access to more than 40 million research papers from all fields of science. Although you do need to register to view the full text of articles, registration is free. The advanced search function is highly detailed, allowing you to find exactly the research you’re looking for. You can also bookmark articles for later research. There are extensive networking options, including your Science Open profile, a forum for interacting with other researchers, the ability to track your usage and citations, and an interactive bibliography. Users have the ability to review articles and provide their knowledge and insight within the community.

To search for research papers with the help of Science open:

Go to: http://about.scienceopen.com/ .
Select on the “green “Search” button located in the upper right corner.
Enter your search terms into the search box. In addition to the keywords, you can look up authors’ collections, journals publishers, as well as others.

OA.mg is a search engine for academic papers. Whether you are looking for a specific paper, or for research from a field, or all of an author’s works – OA.mg is the place to find it. Research papers can be found by using OA.mg by following these steps:

Follow the link below: https://oa.mg
You can enter your keywords or DOI number into the search field that is available there.
Select on the “search” button, and wait for results to show up.
In the search results Download any research document you require by clicking this link for download.

8.Citationsy Archives

Citationsy Archives allows you to look up journals and papers to download, download them, and (obviously) incorporate them into your work.It is important to note that you can access Citationsy Archives with or without an account.

All you have to do is make a request, and it will then search for the exact phrase in all research papers around the world and show the pertinent matches to you. Click on each of them to view more information, and then access it directly from the search results.

The platform also allows you to download the papers using a number of different and totally open access and legal options.

Use Citationsy Archives from https://citationsy.com/archives/

CORE is the world’s largest aggregator of open access research papers from repositories and journals. It is a not-for-profit service dedicated to the open access mission. They serve the global network of repositories and journals by increasing the discoverability and reuse of open access content.

To find a research article using CORE:

Visit: https://core.ac.uk/
Enter your search terms into the search box.
Hit the “Search” link.
Select on the “Get PDF” button to download any research document you are looking for.

10. PaperPanda

PaperPanda is a Chrome extension that uses some clever logic and the Panda’s detective skills to find you the research paper PDFs you need. Essentially, when you activate PaperPanda it finds the DOI of the paper from the current page, and then goes and searches for it. It starts by querying various Open Access repositories like OpenAccessButton, OaDoi, SemanticScholar, Core, ArXiV, and the Internet Archive. You can also set your university libraries domain in the settings (this feature is in the works and coming soon). PaperPanda will then automatically search for the paper through your library. You can also set a different custom domain in the settings.

11.Dimensions

Dimensions covers millions of research publications connected by more than 1.6 billion citations, supporting grants, datasets, clinical trials, patents and policy documents. Dimensions is the most comprehensive research grants database which links grants to millions of resulting publications, clinical trials and patents.

Dimensions includes datasets from repositories such as Figshare, Dryad, Zenodo, Pangaea, and many more. It hosts millions of patents with links to other citing patents as well as to publications and supporting grants.

Visit: https://www.dimensions.ai/

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8 Sites to Download Research Papers for Free – 2020

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14 Websites to Download Research Paper for Free – 2023

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Z-Library is legal? You can Download 70,000,000+ scientific articles for free

21 Legit Research Databases for Free Journal Articles in 2024

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Written by Scribendi

Has this ever happened to you? While looking for websites for research, you come across a research paper site that claims to connect academics to a peer-reviewed article database for free.

Intrigued, you search for keywords related to your topic, only to discover that you must pay a hefty subscription fee to access the service. After the umpteenth time being duped, you begin to wonder if there's even such a thing as free journal articles.

Subscription fees and paywalls are often the bane of students and academics, especially those at small institutions who don't provide access to many free article directories and repositories.

Whether you're working on an undergraduate paper, a PhD dissertation, or a medical research study, we want to help you find tools to locate and access the information you need to produce well-researched, compelling, and innovative work.

Below, we discuss why peer-reviewed articles are superior and list out the best free article databases to use in 2024.

Download Our Free Research Database Roundup PDF

Why peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles are more authoritative.

Determining what sources are reliable can be challenging. Peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles are the gold standard in academic research. Reputable academic journals have a rigorous peer-review process.

The peer review process provides accountability to the academic community, as well as to the content of the article. The peer review process involves qualified experts in a specific (often very specific) field performing a review of an article's methods and findings to determine things like quality and credibility.

Peer-reviewed articles can be found in peer-reviewed article databases and research databases, and if you know that a database of journals is reliable, that can offer reassurances about the reliability of a free article. Peer review is often double blind, meaning that the author removes all identifying information and, likewise, does not know the identity of the reviewers. This helps reviewers maintain objectivity and impartiality so as to judge an article based on its merit.

Where to Find Peer-Reviewed Articles

Peer-reviewed articles can be found in a variety of research databases. Below is a list of some of the major databases you can use to find peer-reviewed articles and other sources in disciplines spanning the humanities, sciences, and social sciences.

What Are Open Access Journals?

An open access (OA) journal is a journal whose content can be accessed without payment. This provides scholars, students, and researchers with free journal articles. OA journals use alternate methods of funding to cover publication costs so that articles can be published without having to pass those publication costs on to the reader.

Some of these funding models include standard funding methods like advertising, public funding, and author payment models, where the author pays a fee in order to publish in the journal. There are OA journals that have non-peer-reviewed academic content, as well as journals that focus on dissertations, theses, and papers from conferences, but the main focus of OA is peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles.

The internet has certainly made it easier to access research articles and other scholarly publications without needing access to a university library, and OA takes another step in that direction by removing financial barriers to academic content.

Choosing Wisely

Features of legitimate oa journals.

There are things to look out for when trying to decide if a free publication journal is legitimate:

Mission statement —The mission statement for an OA journal should be available on their website.

Publication history —Is the journal well established? How long has it been available?

Editorial board —Who are the members of the editorial board, and what are their credentials?

Indexing —Can the journal be found in a reliable database?

Peer review —What is the peer review process? Does the journal allow enough time in the process for a reliable assessment of quality?

Impact factor —What is the average number of times the journal is cited over a two-year period?

Features of Illegitimate OA Journals

There are predatory publications that take advantage of the OA format, and they are something to be wary of. Here are some things to look out for:

Contact information —Is contact information provided? Can it be verified?

Turnaround —If the journal makes dubious claims about the amount of time from submission to publication, it is likely unreliable.

Editorial board —Much like determining legitimacy, looking at the editorial board and their credentials can help determine illegitimacy.

Indexing —Can the journal be found in any scholarly databases?

Peer review —Is there a statement about the peer review process? Does it fit what you know about peer review?

How to Find Scholarly Articles

Identify keywords.

Keywords are included in an article by the author. Keywords are an excellent way to find content relevant to your research topic or area of interest. In academic searches, much like you would on a search engine, you can use keywords to navigate through what is available to find exactly what you're looking for.

Authors provide keywords that will help you easily find their article when researching a related topic, often including general terms to accommodate broader searches, as well as some more specific terms for those with a narrower scope. Keywords can be used individually or in combination to refine your scholarly article search.

Narrow Down Results

Sometimes, search results can be overwhelming, and searching for free articles on a journal database is no exception, but there are multiple ways to narrow down your results. A good place to start is discipline.

What category does your topic fall into (psychology, architecture, machine learning, etc.)? You can also narrow down your search with a year range if you're looking for articles that are more recent.

A Boolean search can be incredibly helpful. This entails including terms like AND between two keywords in your search if you need both keywords to be in your results (or, if you are looking to exclude certain keywords, to exclude these words from the results).

Consider Different Avenues

If you're not having luck using keywords in your search for free articles, you may still be able to find what you're looking for by changing your tactics. Casting a wider net sometimes yields positive results, so it may be helpful to try searching by subject if keywords aren't getting you anywhere.

You can search for a specific publisher to see if they have OA publications in the academic journal database. And, if you know more precisely what you're looking for, you can search for the title of the article or the author's name.

Determining the Credibility of Scholarly Sources

Ensuring that sources are both credible and reliable is crucial to academic research. Use these strategies to help evaluate the usefulness of scholarly sources:

Peer Review : Look for articles that have undergone a rigorous peer-review process. Peer-reviewed articles are typically vetted by experts in the field, ensuring the accuracy of the research findings.

Tip: To determine whether an article has undergone rigorous peer review, review the journal's editorial policies, which are often available on the journal's website. Look for information about the peer-review process, including the criteria for selecting reviewers, the process for handling conflicts of interest, and any transparency measures in place.

Publisher Reputation : Consider the reputation of the publisher. Established publishers, such as well-known academic journals, are more likely to adhere to high editorial standards and publishing ethics.
Author Credentials : Evaluate the credentials and expertise of the authors. Check their affiliations, academic credentials, and past publications to assess their authority in the field.
Citations and References : Examine the citations and references provided in the article. A well-researched article will cite credible sources to support its arguments and findings. Verify the accuracy of the cited sources and ensure they are from reputable sources.
Publication Date : Consider the publication date of the article. While older articles may still be relevant, particularly in certain fields, it is best to prioritize recent publications for up-to-date research and findings.
Journal Impact Factor : Assess the journal's impact factor or other metrics that indicate its influence and reputation within the academic community. Higher impact factor journals are generally considered more prestigious and reliable.

Tip: Journal Citation Reports (JCR), produced by Clarivate Analytics, is a widely used source for impact factor data. You can access JCR through academic libraries or directly from the Clarivate Analytics website if you have a subscription.

Peer Recommendations : Seek recommendations from peers, mentors, or professors in your field. They can provide valuable insights and guidance on reputable sources and journals within your area of study.
Cross-Verification : Cross-verify the information presented in the article with other credible sources. Compare findings, methodologies, and conclusions with similar studies to ensure consistency and reliability.

By employing these strategies, researchers can confidently evaluate the credibility and reliability of scholarly sources, ensuring the integrity of their research contributions in an ever-evolving landscape.

The Top 21 Free Online Journal and Research Databases

Navigating OA journals, research article databases, and academic websites trying to find high-quality sources for your research can really make your head spin. What constitutes a reliable database? What is a useful resource for your discipline and research topic? How can you find and access full-text, peer-reviewed articles?

Fortunately, we're here to help. Having covered some of the ins and outs of peer review, OA journals, and how to search for articles, we have compiled a list of the top 21 free online journals and the best research databases. This list of databases is a great resource to help you navigate the wide world of academic research.

These databases provide a variety of free sources, from abstracts and citations to full-text, peer-reviewed OA journals. With databases covering specific areas of research and interdisciplinary databases that provide a variety of material, these are some of our favorite free databases, and they're totally legit!

CORE is a multidisciplinary aggregator of OA research. CORE has the largest collection of OA articles available. It allows users to search more than 219 million OA articles. While most of these link to the full-text article on the original publisher's site, or to a PDF available for download, five million records are hosted directly on CORE.

CORE's mission statement is a simple and straightforward commitment to offering OA articles to anyone, anywhere in the world. They also host communities that are available for researchers to join and an ambassador community to enhance their services globally. In addition to a straightforward keyword search, CORE offers advanced search options to filter results by publication type, year, language, journal, repository, and author.

CORE's user interface is easy to use and navigate. Search results can be sorted based on relevance or recency, and you can search for relevant content directly from the results screen.

Collection : 219,537,133 OA articles

Other Services : Additional services are available from CORE, with extras that are geared toward researchers, repositories, and businesses. There are tools for accessing raw data, including an API that provides direct access to data, datasets that are available for download, and FastSync for syncing data content from the CORE database.

CORE has a recommender plug-in that suggests relevant OA content in the database while conducting a search and a discovery feature that helps you discover OA versions of paywalled articles. Other features include tools for managing content, such as a dashboard for managing repository output and the Repository Edition service to enhance discoverability.

Good Source of Peer-Reviewed Articles : Yes

Advanced Search Options : Language, author, journal, publisher, repository, DOI, year

2. ScienceOpen

Functioning as a research and publishing network, ScienceOpen offers OA to more than 74 million articles in all areas of science. Although you do need to register to view the full text of articles, registration is free. The advanced search function is highly detailed, allowing you to find exactly the research you're looking for.

The Berlin- and Boston-based company was founded in 2013 to "facilitate open and public communications between academics and to allow ideas to be judged on their merit, regardless of where they come from." Search results can be exported for easy integration with reference management systems.

You can also bookmark articles for later research. There are extensive networking options, including your Science Open profile, a forum for interacting with other researchers, the ability to track your usage and citations, and an interactive bibliography. Users have the ability to review articles and provide their knowledge and insight within the community.

Collection : 74,560,631

Other Services : None

Advanced Search Options : Content type, source, author, journal, discipline

3. Directory of Open Access Journals

The site was launched in 2003 with the aim of increasing the visibility of OA scholarly journals online. Content on the site covers subjects from science, to law, to fine arts, and everything in between. DOAJ has a commitment to "increase the visibility, accessibility, reputation, usage and impact of quality, peer-reviewed, OA scholarly research journals globally, regardless of discipline, geography or language."

Information about the journal is available with each search result. Abstracts are also available in a collapsible format directly from the search screen. The scholarly article website is somewhat simple, but it is easy to navigate. There are 16 principles of transparency and best practices in scholarly publishing that clearly outline DOAJ policies and standards.

Collection : 6,817,242

Advanced Search Options : Subject, journal, year

4. Education Resources Information Center

The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) of the Institution of Education Sciences allows you to search by topic for material related to the field of education. Links lead to other sites, where you may have to purchase the information, but you can search for full-text articles only. You can also search only peer-reviewed sources.

The service primarily indexes journals, gray literature (such as technical reports, white papers, and government documents), and books. All sources of material on ERIC go through a formal review process prior to being indexed. ERIC's selection policy is available as a PDF on their website.

The ERIC website has an extensive FAQ section to address user questions. This includes categories like general questions, peer review, and ERIC content. There are also tips for advanced searches, as well as general guidance on the best way to search the database. ERIC is an excellent database for content specific to education.

Collection : 1,292,897

Advanced Search Options : Boolean

5. arXiv e-Print Archive

The arXiv e-Print Archive is run by Cornell University Library and curated by volunteer moderators, and it now offers OA to more than one million e-prints.

There are advisory committees for all eight subjects available on the database. With a stated commitment to an "emphasis on openness, collaboration, and scholarship," the arXiv e-Print Archive is an excellent STEM resource.

The interface is not as user-friendly as some of the other databases available, and the website hosts a blog to provide news and updates, but it is otherwise a straightforward math and science resource. There are simple and advanced search options, and, in addition to conducting searches for specific topics and articles, users can browse content by subject. The arXiv e-Print Archive clearly states that they do not peer review the e-prints in the database.

Collection : 1,983,891

Good Source of Peer-Reviewed Articles : No

Advanced Search Options : Subject, date, title, author, abstract, DOI

6. Social Science Research Network

The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a collection of papers from the social sciences community. It is a highly interdisciplinary platform used to search for scholarly articles related to 67 social science topics. SSRN has a variety of research networks for the various topics available through the free scholarly database.

The site offers more than 700,000 abstracts and more than 600,000 full-text papers. There is not yet a specific option to search for only full-text articles, but, because most of the papers on the site are free access, it's not often that you encounter a paywall. There is currently no option to search for only peer-reviewed articles.

You must become a member to use the services, but registration is free and enables you to interact with other scholars around the world. SSRN is "passionately committed to increasing inclusion, diversity and equity in scholarly research," and they encourage and discuss the use of inclusive language in scholarship whenever possible.

Collection : 1,058,739 abstracts; 915,452 articles

Advanced Search Options : Term, author, date, network

7. Public Library of Science

Public Library of Science (PLOS) is a big player in the world of OA science. Publishing 12 OA journals, the nonprofit organization is committed to facilitating openness in academic research. According to the site, "all PLOS content is at the highest possible level of OA, meaning that scientific articles are immediately and freely available to anyone, anywhere."

PLOS outlines four fundamental goals that guide the organization: break boundaries, empower researchers, redefine quality, and open science. All PLOS journals are peer-reviewed, and all 12 journals uphold rigorous ethical standards for research, publication, and scientific reporting.

PLOS does not offer advanced search options. Content is organized by topic into research communities that users can browse through, in addition to options to search for both articles and journals. The PLOS website also has resources for peer reviewers, including guidance on becoming a reviewer and on how to best participate in the peer review process.

Collection : 12 journals

Advanced Search Options : None

8. OpenDOAR

OpenDOAR, or the Directory of Open Access Repositories, is a comprehensive resource for finding free OA journals and articles. Using Google Custom Search, OpenDOAR combs through OA repositories around the world and returns relevant research in all disciplines.

The repositories it searches through are assessed and categorized by OpenDOAR staff to ensure they meet quality standards. Inclusion criteria for the database include requirements for OA content, global access, and categorically appropriate content, in addition to various other quality assurance measures. OpenDOAR has metadata, data, content, preservation, and submission policies for repositories, in addition to two OA policy statements regarding minimum and optimum recommendations.

This database allows users to browse and search repositories, which can then be selected, and articles and data can be accessed from the repository directly. As a repository database, much of the content on the site is geared toward the support of repositories and OA standards.

Collection : 5,768 repositories

Other Services : OpenDOAR offers a variety of additional services. Given the nature of the platform, services are primarily aimed at repositories and institutions, and there is a marked focus on OA in general. Sherpa services are OA archiving tools for authors and institutions.

They also offer various resources for OA support and compliance regarding standards and policies. The publication router matches publications and publishers with appropriate repositories.

There are also services and resources from JISC for repositories for cost management, discoverability, research impact, and interoperability, including ORCID consortium membership information. Additionally, a repository self-assessment tool is available for members.

Advanced Search Options : Name, organization name, repository type, software name, content type, subject, country, region

9. Bielefeld Academic Search Engine

The Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) is operated by the Bielefeld University Library in Germany, and it offers more than 240 million documents from more than 8,000 sources. Sixty percent of its content is OA, and you can filter your search accordingly.

BASE has rigorous inclusion requirements for content providers regarding quality and relevance, and they maintain a list of content providers for the sake of transparency, which can be easily found on their website. BASE has a fairly elegant interface. Search results can be organized by author, title, or date.

From the search results, items can be selected and exported, added to favorites, emailed, and searched in Google Scholar. There are basic and advanced search features, with the advanced search offering numerous options for refining search criteria. There is also a feature on the website that saves recent searches without additional steps from the user.

Collection : 276,019,066 documents; 9,286 content providers

Advanced Search Options : Author, subject, year, content provider, language, document type, access, terms of reuse

10. Digital Library of the Commons Repository

Run by Indiana University, the Digital Library of the Commons (DLC) Repository is a multidisciplinary journal repository that allows users to access thousands of free and OA articles from around the world. You can browse by document type, date, author, title, and more or search for keywords relevant to your topic.

DCL also offers the Comprehensive Bibliography of the Commons, an image database, and a keyword thesaurus for enhanced search parameters. The repository includes books, book chapters, conference papers, journal articles, surveys, theses and dissertations, and working papers. DCL advanced search features drop-down menus of search types with built-in Boolean search options.

Searches can be sorted by relevance, title, date, or submission date in ascending or descending order. Abstracts are included in selected search results, with access to full texts available, and citations can be exported from the same page. Additionally, the image database search includes tips for better search results.

Collection : 10,784

Advanced Search Options : Author, date, title, subject, sector, region, conference

11. CIA World Factbook

The CIA World Factbook is a little different from the other resources on this list in that it is not an online journal directory or repository. It is, however, a useful free online research database for academics in a variety of disciplines.

All the information is free to access, and it provides facts about every country in the world, which are organized by category and include information about history, geography, transportation, and much more. The World Factbook can be searched by country or region, and there is also information about the world's oceans.

This site contains resources related to the CIA as an organization rather than being a scientific journal database specifically. The site has a user interface that is easy to navigate. The site also provides a section for updates regarding changes to what information is available and how it is organized, making it easier to interact with the information you are searching for.

Collection : 266 countries

12. Paperity

Paperity boasts its status as the "first multidisciplinary aggregator of OA journals and papers." Their focus is on helping you avoid paywalls while connecting you to authoritative research. In addition to providing readers with easy access to thousands of journals, Paperity seeks to help authors reach their audiences and help journals increase their exposure to boost readership.

Paperity has journal articles for every discipline, and the database offers more than a dozen advanced search options, including the length of the paper and the number of authors. There is even an option to include, exclude, or exclusively search gray papers.

Paperity is available for mobile, with both a mobile site and the Paperity Reader, an app that is available for both Android and Apple users. The database is also available on social media. You can interact with Paperity via Twitter and Facebook, and links to their social media are available on their homepage, including their Twitter feed.

Collection : 8,837,396

Advanced Search Options : Title, abstract, journal title, journal ISSN, publisher, year of publication, number of characters, number of authors, DOI, author, affiliation, language, country, region, continent, gray papers

13. dblp Computer Science Bibliography

The dblp Computer Science Bibliography is an online index of major computer science publications. dblp was founded in 1993, though until 2010 it was a university-specific database at the University of Trier in Germany. It is currently maintained by the Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz Center for Informatics.

Although it provides access to both OA articles and those behind a paywall, you can limit your search to only OA articles. The site indexes more than three million publications, making it an invaluable resource in the world of computer science. dblp entries are color-coded based on the type of item.

dblp has an extensive FAQ section, so questions that might arise about topics like the database itself, navigating the website, or the data on dblp, in addition to several other topics, are likely to be answered. The website also hosts a blog and has a section devoted to website statistics.

Collection : 5,884,702

14. EconBiz

EconBiz is a great resource for economic and business studies. A service of the Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, it offers access to full texts online, with the option of searching for OA material only. Their literature search is performed across multiple international databases.

EconBiz has an incredibly useful research skills section, with resources such as Guided Walk, a service to help students and researchers navigate searches, evaluate sources, and correctly cite references; the Research Guide EconDesk, a help desk to answer specific questions and provide advice to aid in literature searches; and the Academic Career Kit for what they refer to as Early Career Researchers.

Other helpful resources include personal literature lists, a calendar of events for relevant calls for papers, conferences, and workshops, and an economics terminology thesaurus to help in finding keywords for searches. To stay up-to-date with EconBiz, you can sign up for their newsletter.

Collection : 1,075,219

Advanced Search Options : Title, subject, author, institution, ISBN/ISSN, journal, publisher, language, OA only

15. BioMed Central

BioMed Central provides OA research from more than 300 peer-reviewed journals. While originally focused on resources related to the physical sciences, math, and engineering, BioMed Central has branched out to include journals that cover a broader range of disciplines, with the aim of providing a single platform that provides OA articles for a variety of research needs. You can browse these journals by subject or title, or you can search all articles for your required keyword.

BioMed Central has a commitment to peer-reviewed sources and to the peer review process itself, continually seeking to help and improve the peer review process. They're "committed to maintaining high standards through full and stringent peer review."

Additionally, the website includes resources to assist and support editors as part of their commitment to providing high-quality, peer-reviewed OA articles.

Collection : 507,212

Other Services : BMC administers the International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number (ISRCTN) registry. While initially designed for registering clinical trials, since its creation in 2000, the registry has broadened its scope to include other health studies as well.

The registry is recognized by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, as well as the World Health Organization (WHO), and it meets the requirements established by the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform.

The study records included in the registry are all searchable and free to access. The ISRCTN registry "supports transparency in clinical research, helps reduce selective reporting of results and ensures an unbiased and complete evidence base."

Advanced Search Options : Author, title, journal, list

A multidisciplinary search engine, JURN provides links to various scholarly websites, articles, and journals that are free to access or OA. Covering the fields of the arts, humanities, business, law, nature, science, and medicine, JURN has indexed almost 5,000 repositories to help you find exactly what you're looking for.

Search features are enhanced by Google, but searches are filtered through their index of repositories. JURN seeks to reach a wide audience, with their search engine tailored to researchers from "university lecturers and students seeking a strong search tool for OA content" and "advanced and ambitious students, age 14-18" to "amateur historians and biographers" and "unemployed and retired lecturers."

That being said, JURN is very upfront about its limitations. They admit to not being a good resource for educational studies, social studies, or psychology, and conference archives are generally not included due to frequently unstable URLs.

Collection : 5,064 indexed journals

Other Services : JURN has a browser add-on called UserScript. This add-on allows users to integrate the JURN database directly into Google Search. When performing a search through Google, the add-on creates a link that sends the search directly to JURN CSE. JURN CSE is a search service that is hosted by Google.

Clicking the link from the Google Search bar will run your search through the JURN database from the Google homepage. There is also an interface for a DuckDuckGo search box; while this search engine has an emphasis on user privacy, for smaller sites that may be indexed by JURN, DuckDuckGo may not provide the same depth of results.

Advanced Search Options : Google search modifiers

Dryad is a digital repository of curated, OA scientific research data. Launched in 2009, it is run by a not-for-profit membership organization, with a community of institutional and publisher members for whom their services have been designed. Members include institutions such as Stanford, UCLA, and Yale, as well as publishers like Oxford University Press and Wiley.

Dryad aims to "promote a world where research data is openly available, integrated with the scholarly literature, and routinely reused to create knowledge." It is free to access for the search and discovery of data. Their user experience is geared toward easy self-depositing, supports Creative Commons licensing, and provides DOIs for all their content.

Note that there is a publishing charge associated if you wish to publish your data in Dryad. When searching datasets, they are accompanied by author information and abstracts for the associated studies, and citation information is provided for easy attribution.

Collection : 44,458

Advanced Search Options : No

Run by the British Library, the E-Theses Online Service (EThOS) allows you to search over 500,000 doctoral theses in a variety of disciplines. All of the doctoral theses available on EThOS have been awarded by higher education institutions in the United Kingdom.

Although some full texts are behind paywalls, you can limit your search to items available for immediate download, either directly through EThOS or through an institution's website. More than half of the records in the database provide access to full-text theses.

EThOS notes that they do not hold all records for all institutions, but they strive to index as many doctoral theses as possible, and the database is constantly expanding, with approximately 3,000 new records added and 2,000 new full-text theses available every month. The availability of full-text theses is dependent on multiple factors, including their availability in the institutional repository and the level of repository development.

Collection : 500,000+

Advanced Search Options : Abstract, author's first name, author's last name, awarding body, current institution, EThOS ID, year, language, qualifications, research supervisor, sponsor/funder, keyword, title

PubMed is a research platform well-known in the fields of science and medicine. It was created and developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine (NLM). It has been available since 1996 and offers access to "more than 33 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books."

While PubMed does not provide full-text articles directly, and many full-text articles may be behind paywalls or require subscriptions to access them, when articles are available from free sources, such as through PubMed Central (PMC), those links are provided with the citations and abstracts that PubMed does provide.

PMC, which was established in 2000 by the NLM, is a free full-text archive that includes more than 6,000,000 records. PubMed records link directly to corresponding PMC results. PMC content is provided by publishers and other content owners, digitization projects, and authors directly.

Collection : 33,000,000+

Advanced Search Options : Author's first name, author's last name, identifier, corporation, date completed, date created, date entered, date modified, date published, MeSH, book, conflict of interest statement, EC/RN number, editor, filter, grant number, page number, pharmacological action, volume, publication type, publisher, secondary source ID, text, title, abstract, transliterated title

20. Semantic Scholar

A unique and easy-to-use resource, Semantic Scholar defines itself not just as a research database but also as a "search and discovery tool." Semantic Scholar harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to efficiently sort through millions of science-related papers based on your search terms.

Through this singular application of machine learning, Semantic Scholar expands search results to include topic overviews based on your search terms, with the option to create an alert for or further explore the topic. It also provides links to related topics.

In addition, search results produce "TLDR" summaries in order to provide concise overviews of articles and enhance your research by helping you to navigate quickly and easily through the available literature to find the most relevant information. According to the site, although some articles are behind paywalls, "the data [they] have for those articles is limited," so you can expect to receive mostly full-text results.

Collection : 203,379,033

Other Services : Semantic Scholar supports multiple popular browsers. Content can be accessed through both mobile and desktop versions of Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Opera.

Additionally, Semantic Scholar provides browser extensions for both Chrome and Firefox, so AI-powered scholarly search results are never more than a click away. The mobile interface includes an option for Semantic Swipe, a new way of interacting with your research results.

There are also beta features that can be accessed as part of the Beta Program, which will provide you with features that are being actively developed and require user feedback for further improvement.

Advanced Search Options : Field of study, date range, publication type, author, journal, conference, PDF

Zenodo, powered by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), was launched in 2013. Taking its name from Zenodotus, the first librarian of the ancient library of Alexandria, Zenodo is a tool "built and developed by researchers, to ensure that everyone can join in open science." Zenodo accepts all research from every discipline in any file format.

However, Zenodo also curates uploads and promotes peer-reviewed material that is available through OA. A DOI is assigned to everything that is uploaded to Zenodo, making research easily findable and citable. You can sort by keyword, title, journal, and more and download OA documents directly from the site.

While there are closed access and restricted access items in the database, the vast majority of research is OA material. Search results can be filtered by access type, making it easy to view the free articles available in the database.

Collection : 2,220,000+

Advanced Search Options : Access, file type, keywords

Check out our roundup of free research databases as a handy one-page PDF.

How to find peer-reviewed articles.

There are a lot of free scholarly articles available from various sources. The internet is a big place. So how do you go about finding peer-reviewed articles when conducting your research? It's important to make sure you are using reputable sources.

The first source of the article is the person or people who wrote it. Checking out the author can give you some initial insight into how much you can trust what you’re reading. Looking into the publication information of your sources can also indicate whether the article is reliable.

Aspects of the article, such as subject and audience, tone, and format, are other things you can look at when evaluating whether the article you're using is valid, reputable, peer-reviewed material. So, let's break that down into various components so you can assess your research to ensure that you're using quality articles and conducting solid research.

Check the Author

Peer-reviewed articles are written by experts or scholars with experience in the field or discipline they're writing about. The research in a peer-reviewed article has to pass a rigorous evaluation process, so it's a foregone conclusion that the author(s) of a peer-reviewed article should have experience or training related to that research.

When evaluating an article, take a look at the author's information. What credentials does the author have to indicate that their research has scholarly weight behind it? Finding out what type of degree the author has—and what that degree is in—can provide insight into what kind of authority the author is on the subject.

Something else that might lend credence to the author's scholarly role is their professional affiliation. A look at what organization or institution they are affiliated with can tell you a lot about their experience or expertise. Where were they trained, and who is verifying their research?

Identify Subject and Audience

The ultimate goal of a study is to answer a question. Scholarly articles are also written for scholarly audiences, especially articles that have gone through the peer review process. This means that the author is trying to reach experts, researchers, academics, and students in the field or topic the research is based on.

Think about the question the author is trying to answer by conducting this research, why, and for whom. What is the subject of the article? What question has it set out to answer? What is the purpose of finding the information? Is the purpose of the article of importance to other scholars? Is it original content?

Research should also be approached analytically. Is the methodology sound? Is the author using an analytical approach to evaluate the data that they have obtained? Are the conclusions they've reached substantiated by their data and analysis? Answering these questions can reveal a lot about the article's validity.

Format Matters

Reliable articles from peer-reviewed sources have certain format elements to be aware of. The first is an abstract. An abstract is a short summary or overview of the article. Does the article have an abstract? It's unlikely that you're reading a peer-reviewed article if it doesn't. Peer-reviewed journals will also have a word count range. If an article seems far too short or incredibly long, that may be reason to doubt it.

Another feature of reliable articles is the sections the information is divided into. Peer-reviewed research articles will have clear, concise sections that appropriately organize the information. This might include a literature review, methodology, results (in the case of research articles), and a conclusion.

One of the most important sections is the references or bibliography. This is where the researcher lists all the sources of their information. A peer-reviewed source will have a comprehensive reference section.

An article that has been written to reach an academic community will have an academic tone. The language that is used, and the way this language is used, is important to consider. If the article is riddled with grammatical errors, confusing syntax, and casual language, it almost definitely didn't make it through the peer review process.

Also consider the use of terminology. Every discipline is going to have standard terminology or jargon that can be used and understood by other academics in the discipline. The language in a peer-reviewed article is going to reflect that.

If the author is going out of their way to explain simple terms, or terms that are standard to the field or discipline, it's unlikely that the article has been peer reviewed, as this is something that the author would be asked to address during the review process.

Publication

The source of the article will be a very good indicator of the likelihood that it was peer reviewed. Where was the article published? Was it published alongside other academic articles in the same discipline? Is it a legitimate and reputable scholarly publication?

A trade publication or newspaper might be legitimate or reputable, but it is not a scholarly source, and it will not have been subject to the peer review process. Scholarly journals are the best resource for peer-reviewed articles, but it's important to remember that not all scholarly journals are peer reviewed.

It's helpful to look at a scholarly source's website, as peer-reviewed journals will have a clear indication of the peer review process. University libraries, institutional repositories, and reliable databases (and now you have a list of legit ones) can also help provide insight into whether an article comes from a peer-reviewed journal.

Common Research Mistakes to Avoid

Research is a lot of work. Even with high standards and good intentions, it's easy to make mistakes. Perhaps you searched for access to scientific journals for free and found the perfect peer-reviewed sources, but you forgot to document everything, and your references are a mess. Or, you only searched for free online articles and missed out on a ground-breaking study that was behind a paywall.

Whether your research is for a degree or to get published or to satisfy your own inquisitive nature, or all of the above, you want all that work to produce quality results. You want your research to be thorough and accurate.

To have any hope of contributing to the literature on your research topic, your results need to be high quality. You might not be able to avoid every potential mistake, but here are some that are both common and easy to avoid.

Sticking to One Source

One of the hallmarks of good research is a healthy reference section. Using a variety of sources gives you a better answer to your question. Even if all of the literature is in agreement, looking at various aspects of the topic may provide you with an entirely different picture than you would have if you looked at your research question from only one angle.

Not Documenting Every Fact

As you conduct your research, do yourself a favor and write everything down. Everything you include in your paper or article that you got from another source is going to need to be added to your references and cited.

It's important, especially if your aim is to conduct ethical, high-quality research, that all of your research has proper attribution. If you don't document as you go, you could end up making a lot of work for yourself if the information you don't write down is something that later, as you write your paper, you really need.

Using Outdated Materials

Academia is an ever-changing landscape. What was true in your academic discipline or area of research ten years ago may have since been disproven. If fifteen studies have come out since the article that you're using was published, it's more than a little likely that you're going to be basing your research on flawed or dated information.

If the information you're basing your research on isn't as up-to-date as possible, your research won't be of quality or able to stand up to any amount of scrutiny. You don't want all of your hard work to be for naught.

Relying Solely on Open Access Journals

OA is a great resource for conducting academic research. There are high-quality journal articles available through OA, and that can be very helpful for your research. But, just because you have access to free articles, that doesn't mean that there's nothing to be found behind a paywall.

Just as dismissing high-quality peer-reviewed articles because they are OA would be limiting, not exploring any paid content at all is equally short-sighted. If you're seeking to conduct thorough and comprehensive research, exploring all of your options for quality sources is going to be to your benefit.

Digging Too Deep or Not Deep Enough

Research is an art form, and it involves a delicate balance of information. If you conduct your research using only broad search terms, you won't be able to answer your research question well, or you'll find that your research provides information that is closely related to your topic but, ultimately, your findings are vague and unsubstantiated.

On the other hand, if you delve deeply into your research topic with specific searches and turn up too many sources, you might have a lot of information that is adjacent to your topic but without focus and perhaps not entirely relevant. It's important to answer your research question concisely but thoroughly.

Different Types of Scholarly Articles

Different types of scholarly articles have different purposes. An original research article, also called an empirical article, is the product of a study or an experiment. This type of article seeks to answer a question or fill a gap in the existing literature.

Research articles will have a methodology, results, and a discussion of the findings of the experiment or research and typically a conclusion.

Review articles overview the current literature and research and provide a summary of what the existing research indicates or has concluded. This type of study will have a section for the literature review, as well as a discussion of the findings of that review. Review articles will have a particularly extensive reference or bibliography section.

Theoretical articles draw on existing literature to create new theories or conclusions, or look at current theories from a different perspective, to contribute to the foundational knowledge of the field of study.

10 Tips for Navigating Journal Databases

Use the right academic journal database for your search, be that interdisciplinary or specific to your field. Or both!

If it's an option, set the search results to return only peer-reviewed sources.

Start by using search terms that are relevant to your topic without being overly specific.

Try synonyms, especially if your keywords aren't returning the desired results.

Even if you've found some good articles, try searching using different terms.

Explore the advanced search features of the database(s).

Learn to use Booleans (AND, OR, NOT) to expand or narrow your results.

Once you've gotten some good results from a more general search, try narrowing your search.

Read through abstracts when trying to find articles relevant to your research.

Keep track of your research and use citation tools. It'll make life easier when it comes time to compile your references.

7 Frequently Asked Questions

1. how do i get articles for free.

Free articles can be found through free online academic journals, OA databases, or other databases that include OA journals and articles. These resources allow you to access free papers online so you can conduct your research without getting stuck behind a paywall.

Academics don't receive payment for the articles they contribute to journals. There are often, in fact, publication fees that scholars pay in order to publish. This is one of the funding structures that allows OA journals to provide free content so that you don't have to pay fees or subscription costs to access journal articles.

2. How Do I Find Journal Articles?

Journal articles can be found in databases and institutional repositories that can be accessed at university libraries. However, online research databases that contain OA articles are the best resource for getting free access to journal articles that are available online.

Peer-reviewed journal articles are the best to use for academic research, and there are a number of databases where you can find peer-reviewed OA journal articles. Once you've found a useful article, you can look through the references for the articles the author used to conduct their research, and you can then search online databases for those articles, too.

3. How Do I Find Peer-Reviewed Articles?

Peer-reviewed articles can be found in reputable scholarly peer-reviewed journals. High-quality journals and journal articles can be found online using academic search engines and free research databases. These resources are excellent for finding OA articles, including peer-reviewed articles.

OA articles are articles that can be accessed for free. While some scholarly search engines and databases include articles that aren't peer reviewed, there are also some that provide only peer-reviewed articles, and databases that include non-peer-reviewed articles often have advanced search features that enable you to select "peer review only." The database will return results that are exclusively peer-reviewed content.

4. What Are Research Databases?

A research database is a list of journals, articles, datasets, and/or abstracts that allows you to easily search for scholarly and academic resources and conduct research online. There are databases that are interdisciplinary and cover a variety of topics.

For example, Paperity might be a great resource for a chemist as well as a linguist, and there are databases that are more specific to a certain field. So, while ERIC might be one of the best educational databases available for OA content, it's not going to be one of the best databases for finding research in the field of microbiology.

5. How Do I Find Scholarly Articles for Specific Fields?

There are interdisciplinary research databases that provide articles in a variety of fields, as well as research databases that provide articles that cater to specific disciplines. Additionally, a journal repository or index can be a helpful resource for finding articles in a specific field.

When searching an interdisciplinary database, there are frequently advanced search features that allow you to narrow the search results down so that they are specific to your field. Selecting "psychology" in the advanced search features will return psychology journal articles in your search results. You can also try databases that are specific to your field.

If you're searching for law journal articles, many law reviews are OA. If you don't know of any databases specific to history, visiting a journal repository or index and searching "history academic journals" can return a list of journals specific to history and provide you with a place to begin your research.

6. Are Peer-Reviewed Articles Really More Legitimate?

The short answer is yes, peer-reviewed articles are more legitimate resources for academic research. The peer review process provides legitimacy, as it is a rigorous review of the content of an article that is performed by scholars and academics who are experts in their field of study. The review provides an evaluation of the quality and credibility of the article.

Non-peer-reviewed articles are not subject to a review process and do not undergo the same level of scrutiny. This means that non-peer-reviewed articles are unlikely, or at least not as likely, to meet the same standards that peer-reviewed articles do.

7. Are Free Article Directories Legitimate?

Yes! As with anything, some databases are going to be better for certain requirements than others. But, a scholarly article database being free is not a reason in itself to question its legitimacy.

Free scholarly article databases can provide access to abstracts, scholarly article websites, journal repositories, and high-quality peer-reviewed journal articles. The internet has a lot of information, and it's often challenging to figure out what information is reliable.

Research databases and article directories are great resources to help you conduct your research. Our list of the best research paper websites is sure to provide you with sources that are totally legit.

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How To Download Research Papers For Free: Sci-hub, LibGen, etc.

One of the biggest problems about accessing research papers is the cost. At times, you may have encountered the right papers for your research, only to be frustrated that it needs to be paid for.

There are many ways to download research papers for free, using websites like Oa.mg, LibGen, and more. This post will talk about these platforms, so you can go try it out yourself.

Open Access vs Paywalled Research Papers

There may be many research papers around, but there are some that remain behind paywalls. While the demand for open access to research is undeniable, certain factors contribute to the persistence of paywalled content.

Publishing Companies Need The Funds

Publishers like Elsevier and Wiley operate on a model where subscription fees and paywalls helps to pay for costs such as:

peer review,
typesetting, and
maintaining digital platforms.

This economic structure ensures the sustainability of publishing houses but limits access to those without the means to pay.

Protect Copyright Laws

Copyright laws further entrench the paywall system. Publishers hold the rights to the vast majority of journal articles, making it illegal to distribute copyrighted material without consent.

This legal framework underpins the operation of paywalls, despite the ethical debate surrounding access to publicly funded research.

In response, platforms like PaperPanda and Unpaywall have emerged, utilizing clever logic and browser extensions to find open access versions of papers, leveraging repositories like the Directory of Open Access Journals.

Paid Papers Seem To Have Higher Value

The perceived value of peer-reviewed journal articles also plays a role. Academic institutions and researchers place high regard on published work, often equating it with career advancement and credibility.

This prestige associated with peer-reviewed publications incentivizes researchers to publish in traditional journals, despite their papers going to be behind a paywall.

Open access platforms and repositories strive to balance this by offering peer-reviewed articles for free, challenging the traditional valuation of scholarly work.

Despite these challenges, the landscape is shifting. Open access initiatives are gaining traction, challenging the traditional publishing model and advocating for free access to research.

As the academic community and the public demand more equitable access to knowledge, the future might see a paradigm shift towards a more open and accessible repository of human understanding.

Best Websites To Download Research Papers For Free

If you are looking to dive into the vast ocean of academic knowledge without hitting a paywall, certain websites are akin to hidden treasures.

These platforms offer free access to millions of research papers and journal articles, covering various areas of science and beyond.

Often dubbed as the “Pirate Bay” of scientific articles, Sci-Hub breaks down the barriers to knowledge by providing free access to research papers that are otherwise locked behind paywalls.

Founded by Alexandra Elbakyan in 2011, this website uses donated institutional logins to bypass publisher restrictions, offering a direct download button for the paper you’re after.

It’s a controversial but popular choice to download papers, with a repository that includes articles from nearly every field of research. Users simply need to find the DOI (Digital Object Identifier) of the paper they want, and Sci-Hub does the rest.

Library Genesis (LibGen)

This is more than just a repository for scientific papers; it’s a comprehensive database of:

academic books,
comics, and

Library Genesis offers a wide range of academic and non-academic content, making it a versatile resource for researchers, students, and the general public alike.

The platform operates on the principle of sharing knowledge freely, and you can easily find and download PDFs of the research papers you need.

This is a free browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that provides legal access to millions of open access research papers.

When you stumble upon a paper online, Unpaywall’s clever logic checks various open access repositories and finds you a legal, freely available copy.

It’s like having a digital detective at your disposal, dedicated to finding open-access versions of paywalled articles.

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

The DOAJ is an online directory that indexes and provides access to high-quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals.

It covers all subjects and languages, making it an invaluable tool for researchers worldwide.

The directory is meticulously curated, ensuring that all listed journals adhere to a stringent open access policy. For those seeking reputable sources, this is a go-to place to find open access research papers across disciplines.

OA.mg is a tool designed to facilitate free access to scientific papers that are otherwise behind paywalls.

It operates by leveraging the open access movement’s resources, indexing millions of freely available research papers.

To obtain a paper, you typically need the DOI (Digital Object Identifier) of the desired article. By entering this DOI into OA.mg, the platform searches through various open access repositories and databases to find a legally accessible version of the paper.

This service simplifies the process of finding open access versions of research papers, making academic literature more accessible to everyone.

Utilizing some of the most advanced search algorithms, PaperPanda operates by querying various open access repositories to find you the research paper pdfs you need.

It’s especially useful for those who don’t have the DOI of a paper, as PaperPanda’s search capabilities can locate papers based on:

author names, or

The platform aims to democratize access to scientific literature by making it as straightforward as possible to find and download research papers for free.

Download Research Papers For Free

Each of these websites plays a crucial role in the ongoing push towards open access, ensuring that scientific knowledge is available to anyone curious enough to seek it out.

Whether you’re conducting a literature review, working on a thesis, or simply indulging in a personal quest for knowledge, these platforms can provide you with the resources you need, free of charge.

Dr Andrew Stapleton has a Masters and PhD in Chemistry from the UK and Australia. He has many years of research experience and has worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Associate at a number of Universities. Although having secured funding for his own research, he left academia to help others with his YouTube channel all about the inner workings of academia and how to make it work for you.

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Open Access (OA) refers to the practice of providing unrestricted access via the Internet to peer-reviewed scholarly research. OA content is available to all, without the usual financial or legal barriers. We believe that open access is crucial in fostering a culture of knowledge sharing and collaboration, thereby accelerating innovation and discovery.

Types of Open Access:

Gold Open Access: Papers are published in open access journals that provide immediate open access to all of their articles.
Green Open Access (Self-Archiving): Authors publish in any journal and then self-archive a version of the article for free public use in their institutional repository or on a website.
Hybrid Open Access: Some articles in a subscription journal are made open access upon the payment of an additional charge.

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Open access in scientific publishing represents a transformative approach that breaks down traditional barriers to knowledge dissemination. It is a movement dedicated to making scientific research freely available to all, fostering a more inclusive and collaborative scientific community. At its core, open access allows for the unrestricted sharing of research findings, enabling scientists, academicians, and the general public to access and utilize scientific papers without the constraints of subscription fees or licensing restrictions. This paradigm shift in scholarly communication is driven by the belief that knowledge, particularly that which is publicly funded, should be a communal resource, accessible to everyone for the greater good of society.

In the realm of scientific research, open access has numerous advantages. It accelerates the pace of discovery by allowing researchers to build upon existing work without delay, facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration and cross-pollination of ideas across various fields. This is particularly crucial in addressing global challenges, where rapid and unencumbered access to research can lead to faster solutions. Furthermore, open access democratizes knowledge by making it available to researchers in developing countries who may not have the resources for expensive journal subscriptions, thereby narrowing the research gap between high and low-income countries.

The open access model also aligns with the digital age's ethos of openness and transparency. It enables a more efficient validation and critique process, as a larger audience can scrutinize and contribute to the research. This can lead to higher quality and more reliable scientific work. Moreover, it provides an equal platform for emerging researchers and institutions to share their findings, ensuring that the visibility and impact of research are not confined to those within well-funded, prestigious entities.

However, the transition to open access is not without challenges. The sustainability of publishing models, quality assurance, and equitable distribution of costs are ongoing concerns. Despite these hurdles, the open access movement is gaining momentum, driven by the global scientific community's commitment to an open, accessible, and collaborative future in research. As we move forward, open access stands as a beacon of progress, symbolizing a world where knowledge is a shared and freely accessible asset, driving innovation and societal advancement.

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Writing Tips

10 Free Research and Journal Databases

3-minute read

6th April 2019

Finding good research can be tough, especially when so much of it is locked behind paywalls . But there are free resources out there if you know where to look. So to help out, we’ve compiled a list of ten free academic search engines and databases that you should check out.

1. Google Scholar

Even if you’ve not used Google Scholar before, you’ll know Google. And, thus, you can probably guess that Google Scholar is a search engine dedicated to academic work. Not everything listed on Google Scholar will be freely available in full. But it is a good place to start if you’re looking for a specific paper, and many papers can be downloaded for free.

CORE is an open research aggregator. This means it works as a search engine for open access research published by organizations from around the world, all of which is available for free. It is also the world’s largest open access aggregator , so it is a very useful resource for researchers!

3. Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE)

Another dedicated academic search engine, BASE offers access to more than 140 million documents from more than 6,000 sources. Around 60% of these documents are open access, and you can filter results to see only research that is available for free online.

4. Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a database that lists around 12,000 open access journals covering all areas of science, technology, medicine, social science, and the humanities.

PubMed is a search engine maintained by the NCBI, part of the United States National Library of Medicine. It provides access to more than 29 million citations of biomedical research from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. The NCBI runs a similar search engine for research in the chemical sciences called PubChem , too, which is also free to use.

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6. E-Theses Online Service (EThOS)

Run by the British Library, EThOS is a database of over 500,000 doctoral theses. More than half of these are available for free, either directly via EThOS or via a link to a university website.

7. Social Science Research Network (SSRN)

SSRN is a database for research from the social sciences and humanities, including 846,589 research papers from 426,107 researchers across 30 disciplines. Most of these are available for free, although you may need to sign up as a member (also free) to access some services.

8. WorldWideScience

WorldWideScience is a global academic search engine, providing access to national and international scientific databases from across the globe. One interesting feature is that it offers automatic translation, so users can have search results translated into their preferred language.

9. Semantic Scholar

Semantic Scholar is an “intelligent” academic search engine. It uses machine learning to prioritize the most important research, which can make it easier to find relevant literature. Or, in Semantic Scholar’s own words, it uses influential citations, images, and key phrases to “cut through the clutter.”

10. Public Library of Science (PLOS)

PLOS is an open-access research organization that publishes several journals. But as well as publishing its own research, PLOS is a dedicated advocate for open-access learning. So if you appreciate the search engines and databases we’ve listed here, check out the rest of the PLOS site to find out more about their campaign to enable access to knowledge.

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The top list of academic search engines

1. Google Scholar

4. science.gov, 5. semantic scholar, 6. baidu scholar, get the most out of academic search engines, frequently asked questions about academic search engines, related articles.

Academic search engines have become the number one resource to turn to in order to find research papers and other scholarly sources. While classic academic databases like Web of Science and Scopus are locked behind paywalls, Google Scholar and others can be accessed free of charge. In order to help you get your research done fast, we have compiled the top list of free academic search engines.

Google Scholar is the clear number one when it comes to academic search engines. It's the power of Google searches applied to research papers and patents. It not only lets you find research papers for all academic disciplines for free but also often provides links to full-text PDF files.

Coverage: approx. 200 million articles
Abstracts: only a snippet of the abstract is available
Related articles: ✔
References: ✔
Cited by: ✔
Links to full text: ✔
Export formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, Vancouver, RIS, BibTeX

BASE is hosted at Bielefeld University in Germany. That is also where its name stems from (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine).

Coverage: approx. 136 million articles (contains duplicates)
Abstracts: ✔
Related articles: ✘
References: ✘
Cited by: ✘
Export formats: RIS, BibTeX

Search interface of Bielefeld Academic Search Engine aka BASE

CORE is an academic search engine dedicated to open-access research papers. For each search result, a link to the full-text PDF or full-text web page is provided.

Coverage: approx. 136 million articles
Links to full text: ✔ (all articles in CORE are open access)
Export formats: BibTeX

Search interface of the CORE academic search engine

Science.gov is a fantastic resource as it bundles and offers free access to search results from more than 15 U.S. federal agencies. There is no need anymore to query all those resources separately!

Coverage: approx. 200 million articles and reports
Links to full text: ✔ (available for some databases)
Export formats: APA, MLA, RIS, BibTeX (available for some databases)

Semantic Scholar is the new kid on the block. Its mission is to provide more relevant and impactful search results using AI-powered algorithms that find hidden connections and links between research topics.

Coverage: approx. 40 million articles
Export formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, BibTeX

Although Baidu Scholar's interface is in Chinese, its index contains research papers in English as well as Chinese.

Coverage: no detailed statistics available, approx. 100 million articles
Abstracts: only snippets of the abstract are available
Export formats: APA, MLA, RIS, BibTeX

RefSeek searches more than one billion documents from academic and organizational websites. Its clean interface makes it especially easy to use for students and new researchers.

Coverage: no detailed statistics available, approx. 1 billion documents
Abstracts: only snippets of the article are available
Export formats: not available

Consider using a reference manager like Paperpile to save, organize, and cite your references. Paperpile integrates with Google Scholar and many popular databases, so you can save references and PDFs directly to your library using the Paperpile buttons:

Google Scholar is an academic search engine, and it is the clear number one when it comes to academic search engines. It's the power of Google searches applied to research papers and patents. It not only let's you find research papers for all academic disciplines for free, but also often provides links to full text PDF file.

Semantic Scholar is a free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature developed at the Allen Institute for AI. Sematic Scholar was publicly released in 2015 and uses advances in natural language processing to provide summaries for scholarly papers.

BASE , as its name suggest is an academic search engine. It is hosted at Bielefeld University in Germany and that's where it name stems from (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine).

CORE is an academic search engine dedicated to open access research papers. For each search result a link to the full text PDF or full text web page is provided.

Science.gov is a fantastic resource as it bundles and offers free access to search results from more than 15 U.S. federal agencies. There is no need any more to query all those resources separately!

A free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature

Emily Breza

New & Improved API for Developers

Introducing semantic reader in beta.

Stay Connected With Semantic Scholar Sign Up What Is Semantic Scholar? Semantic Scholar is a free, AI-powered research tool for scientific literature, based at the Allen Institute for AI.

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(PDF) 14 Websites to Download Research Paper for Free
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14 Websites to Download Research Paper for Free
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How To Download Research Papers Journals Free 2023
how to download research paper for free

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14 Websites to Download Research Paper for Free
14 best free websites to download research papers are listed below: 1. Sci-Hub. Sci-Hub is a website link with over 64.5 million academic papers and articles available for direct download. It bypasses publisher paywalls by allowing access through educational institution proxies.
Unpaywall
An open database of 49,985,129 free scholarly articles. We harvest Open Access content from over 50,000 publishers and repositories, and make it easy to find, track, and use. Get the extension "Unpaywall is transforming Open Science" —Nature feature ... Libraries Enterprise Research.
15 Best Websites to Download Research Papers for Free
Best Websites to Download Research Papers. #1. Sci-Hub - Best for Accessing Paywalled Academic Papers. Credits: Armacad. Summary. Unlocks millions of academic articles. Known as the 'Robin Hood' of research. Free and easy to use. Sci-Hub is the defiant maverick of the academic sphere.
OA.mg
Free access to millions of research papers for everyone. OA.mg is a search engine for academic papers. Whether you are looking for a specific paper, or for research from a field, or all of an author's works - OA.mg is the place to find it. Universities and researchers funded by the public publish their research in papers, but where do we ...
Internet Archive Scholar
Search Millions of Research Papers. This fulltext search index includes over 35 million research articles and other scholarly documents preserved in the Internet Archive. The collection spans from digitized copies of eighteenth century journals through the latest Open Access conference proceedings and preprints crawled from the World Wide Web.
Best Websites To Download Research Papers For Free: Beyond Sci-Hub
Unlike other websites to download research papers, Google Scholar provides free access to a vast collection of scholarly literature, making it one of the best websites to download research. Not every article is available in full PDF format directly; however, Google Scholar often links to other open access resources like DOAJ (Directory of Open ...
Sci-Hub: knowledge to everyone
Sci-Hub is the most controversial project in today science. The goal of Sci-Hub is to provide free and unrestricted access to all scientific knowledge ever published in journal or book form.. Today the circulation of knowledge in science is restricted by high prices. Many students and researchers cannot afford academic journals and books that are locked behind paywalls.
Top 11 Websites for Free Research Paper Downloads
However, downloading a research paper is one of the most challenging chores for any research scholar. To gain access to high-quality research resources, one needs to pay a fee or subscribe to a journal or publication. In this post, We have shown you how to get a research paper for free. 1. Sci-Hub
21 Legit Research Databases for Free Journal Articles in 2024
It is a highly interdisciplinary platform used to search for scholarly articles related to 67 social science topics. SSRN has a variety of research networks for the various topics available through the free scholarly database. The site offers more than 700,000 abstracts and more than 600,000 full-text papers.
14 Websites to Download Research Paper for Free
14 best free websites to download research papers are listed below: 1. Sci-Hub. Sci-Hub is a website link with over 64 .5 million academic papers and articles available for direct. download. It ...
How To Download Research Papers For Free: Sci-hub, LibGen, etc
There are many ways to download research papers for free, using websites like Oa.mg, LibGen, and more. This post will talk about these platforms, so you can go try it out yourself. Website. Features. Sci-Hub. - Direct download button. - Requires DOI of the paper. - Articles from nearly every field of research.
ResearchGate
Access 160+ million publications and connect with 25+ million researchers. Join for free and gain visibility by uploading your research.
Open and free content on JSTOR and Artstor
Explore our growing collection of Open Access journals. Early Journal Content, articles published prior to the last 95 years in the United States, or prior to the last 143 years if initially published internationally, are freely available to all. Even more content is available when you register to read - millions of articles from nearly 2,000 ...
Find and Download Scientific Papers
InstructionsInstall Now →Install Now →. Find scientific papers by searching here or download the Chrome extension. Unlocking Knowledge: Your Gateway to Open Access Scientific Papers and Research Data. Introduction. In the digital era, the quest for knowledge and scientific discovery is no longer confined to the walls of academia and ...
OATD
OATD.org aims to be the best possible resource for finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. Metadata (information about the theses) comes from over 1100 colleges, universities, and research institutions. OATD currently indexes 7,230,360 theses and dissertations. About OATD (our FAQ). Visual OATD.org
Academia.edu
Work faster and smarter with advanced research discovery tools. Search the full text and citations of our millions of papers. Download groups of related papers to jumpstart your research. Save time with detailed summaries and search alerts. Advanced Search. PDF Packages of 37 papers.
Directory of Open Access Journals
About the directory. DOAJ is a unique and extensive index of diverse open access journals from around the world, driven by a growing community, and is committed to ensuring quality content is freely available online for everyone. DOAJ is committed to keeping its services free of charge, including being indexed, and its data freely available.
Open Research Library
The Open Research Library (ORL) is planned to include all Open Access book content worldwide on one platform for user-friendly discovery, offering a seamless experience navigating more than 20,000 Open Access books.
10 Free Research and Journal Databases
3. Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) Another dedicated academic search engine, BASE offers access to more than 140 million documents from more than 6,000 sources. Around 60% of these documents are open access, and you can filter results to see only research that is available for free online. 4.
The best academic search engines [Update 2024]
Get 30 days free. 1. Google Scholar. Google Scholar is the clear number one when it comes to academic search engines. It's the power of Google searches applied to research papers and patents. It not only lets you find research papers for all academic disciplines for free but also often provides links to full-text PDF files.
Search
Find the research you need | With 160+ million publications, 1+ million questions, and 25+ million researchers, this is where everyone can access science
Semantic Scholar
Semantic Reader is an augmented reader with the potential to revolutionize scientific reading by making it more accessible and richly contextual. Try it for select papers. Semantic Scholar uses groundbreaking AI and engineering to understand the semantics of scientific literature to help Scholars discover relevant research.
Scribbr
Help you achieve your academic goals. Whether we're proofreading and editing, checking for plagiarism or AI content, generating citations, or writing useful Knowledge Base articles, our aim is to support students on their journey to become better academic writers. We believe that every student should have the right tools for academic success.
Latest science news, discoveries and analysis
Latest science news and analysis from the world's leading research journal. ... To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in ...
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Today, we're introducing Meta Llama 3, the next generation of our state-of-the-art open source large language model. Llama 3 models will soon be available on AWS, Databricks, Google Cloud, Hugging Face, Kaggle, IBM WatsonX, Microsoft Azure, NVIDIA NIM, and Snowflake, and with support from hardware platforms offered by AMD, AWS, Dell, Intel, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm.