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.
1. Sci-Hub
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
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, 2022.
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.
7. OA.mg
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/
9.CORE
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/
Sources:
https://www.scribendi.com/academy/articles/free_online_journal_and_research_databases.en.html
https://gauravtiwari.org/download-research-papers-for-free/
8 Sites to Download Research Papers for Free – 2020
https://microbiologynote.com/12-top-websites-to-download-research-papers-for-free/
14 Websites to Download Research Paper for Free – 2023
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis
Z-Library is legal? You can Download 70,000,000+ scientific articles for free