Academic Research Booklet

17

Getting around academic paywalls The worst has happened - you've found a promising academic article and all of a sudden, you're blocked by the publisher asking you to pay an outrageous fee to continue reading! The following tips may help you get around these pay walls and progress your research further. You can email article links to Ms Eldred, if she can get a copy from elsewhere she will email it back to you. Even though you can’t read the whole article you can usually read the abstract. An abstract summarises the main gist of the information including the findings. It’s possible to use information given in an abstract to inform your study although, of course, you should always read the full text where possible. Sometimes even though you can’t read the whole article you can still see the bibliography . A bibliography will show where the author got their information from allowing you to follow the trail and do likewise. It’s always worth doing a Google search of the authors you come across as many will have biographies or personal websites where they sometimes publish their articles to read for free – or links to other articles, interviews, reviews etc. which you may be able to make use of instead. You can search millions of publications and authors on Research Gate for free. Not all articles will be available for immediate download but you can contact Ms Eldred who will put the request in for you.