If you have a degree in psychology, or if you’ve otherwise done academic work in hard science or social science, you can probably find sources while sleepwalking. People who are currently earning their degrees at academic institutions also have access to research databases that other people might not have access to. By contrast, if you never learned how to find sources in school, you might not know where to begin. This article will show you how to find academic research without any special access.
Check your library
The first thing you should do is check your local public library’s website. Some resources here will require a library card, but you can get a public library card for free. Anyways, your library’s website should have a section for “research” or something like that, which you can use to start finding academic resources yourself. You might not have an academic library to rely on, but your local public library might be able to help you out more than you think.
Free academic databases (PubMed and JSTOR)
If your local library cannot help you out, there are a few completely free academic research databases that you can still turn to.
PubMed
Your first stop should be PubMed (which we often link to on this very website). In PubMed, you can search for whatever you like (say, something like “applications of psychology”) and instantly get a list of all the articles dealing with that topic. While abstracts (which are short summaries of articles) are almost always freely available, some of the full texts might be restricted to people who have access through academic libraries. However, after making a search query, you can use the left sidebar to only show results that have full texts that can be accessed for free.
JSTOR
JSTOR is similar to PubMed, though it is also more likely to include research results from book chapters (as opposed to just academic papers). Like PubMed, JSTOR has a function on the left sidebar that only shows you content you can access for free (aptly called “Content I Can Access”). This means you will not have to waste your time finding a study that looks interesting, only to see that you cannot fully access it beyond the abstract.
A note about free PubMed and JSTOR accounts: Both PubMed and JSTOR let you make free accounts that do not have to necessarily be tied to any academic institutions. These accounts might help you make more specific search queries using additional filters, but they are not necessary. Still, they do not cost anything and are open to anyone, so feel free to make an account if you feel the need.
Wrapping up
One of the main problems with science these days is how inaccessible research is to the average person, or to the person who just happens to not have access to a specific journal. However, with PubMed, JSTOR, and resources available from your local public library, there is nothing stopping you from keeping up with the latest psychological research on your own. If you don’t believe me, give it a try. You might be surprised at how much completely free research is out there, waiting for you to find it.
