Research Guides

Hit a paywall? There is almost always a legitimate free copy of a paper somewhere — an open-access version, a preprint, a repository copy, or an author manuscript. Here is how to find it without piracy.

The colors of open access decoded — what an APC is, what CC BY means, how preprints and accepted manuscripts differ from the final paper, and how to spot predatory journals.

The exact format for citing a journal article in APA 7, MLA 9 and Chicago, what a DOI is, in-text vs reference-list citations, and how to export BibTeX or RIS into Zotero or Mendeley.

You don't read a paper front to back. Learn the three-pass method, what each section actually tells you, how to judge quality quickly, and how to use AI summaries without being misled.

What a patent actually is, the difference between an application and a granted patent, the free databases to search (Google Patents, Espacenet, WIPO PATENTSCOPE), and how to read a patent once you find one.

The public domain, open licenses and library lending explained — plus the best legitimate sources for free ebooks and audiobooks (Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks, LibriVox, the Internet Archive) and what the formats mean.

Where to find primary legal sources for free — laws and regulations (Federal Register, legislation.gov.uk, EUR-Lex) and court cases (CourtListener, Find Case Law, Indian Kanoon) — and how to search them without getting lost.

A preprint lets you read research months before it's formally published — but it hasn't been peer-reviewed yet. Here's what that trade-off means, the main preprint servers, and how to cite one properly.

Peer review, journal metrics, predatory publishers and retractions demystified — a practical checklist for judging whether a paper, journal or claim deserves your trust.

A repeatable method for literature reviews — turning a topic into a searchable question, searching systematically, screening and organizing papers, finding the gap, and writing it up with citations.