free student research papers

Download 55 million PDFs for free

Explore our top research interests.

Engineering

Anthropology

• Earth Sciences

• Computer Science

• Mathematics

• Health Sciences

Join 260 million academics and researchers

Track your impact.

Share your work with other academics, grow your audience and track your impact on your field with our robust analytics

Discover new research

Get access to millions of research papers and stay informed with the important topics around the world

Publish your work

Publish your research with fast and rigorous service through Academia.edu Publishing. Get instant worldwide dissemination of your work

Unlock the most powerful tools with Academia Premium

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
• Summaries and Search Alerts

Share your work, track your impact, and grow your audience

Get notified when other academics mention you or cite your papers. Track your impact with in-depth analytics and network with members of your field.

• Mentions and Citations Tracking
• Advanced Analytics
• Publishing Tools

Real stories from real people

Used by academics at over 15,000 universities

Get started and find the best quality research

• Academia.edu Publishing
•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Cognitive Science
• Academia ©2024

Librarians/Admins

• EBSCOhost Collection Manager
• EBSCO Experience Manager
• EBSCO Connect
• Start your research
• EBSCO Mobile App

Clinical Decisions Users

• DynaMed Decisions
• Dynamic Health
• Waiting Rooms
• NoveList Blog

Free Databases

EBSCO provides free research databases covering a variety of subjects for students, researchers and librarians.

Exploring Race in Society

This free research database offers essential content covering important issues related to race in society today. Essays, articles, reports and other reliable sources provide an in-depth look at the history of race and provide critical context for learning more about topics associated with race, ethnicity, diversity and inclusiveness.

EBSCO Open Dissertations

EBSCO Open Dissertations is a collaboration between EBSCO and BiblioLabs to increase traffic and discoverability of ETD research. You can join the movement and add your theses and dissertations to the database, making them freely available to researchers everywhere.

GreenFILE is a free research database covering all aspects of human impact to the environment. Its collection of scholarly, government and general-interest titles includes content on global warming, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, and more. 

Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts

Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA) is a free research database for library and information science studies. LISTA provides indexing and abstracting for hundreds of key journals, books, research reports. It is EBSCO's intention to provide access to this resource on a continual basis.

Teacher Reference Center

A complimentary research database for teachers,  Teacher Reference Center  (TRC) provides indexing and abstracts for more than 230 peer-reviewed journals.

European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750

European Views of the Americas: 1493 to 1750 is a free archive of indexed publications related to the Americas and written in Europe before 1750. It includes thousands of valuable primary source records covering the history of European exploration as well as portrayals of Native American peoples.

Recommended Reading

APA Formatting and Style (7th ed.) for Student Papers

• What's New in the 7th ed.?
• Principles of Plagiarism: An Overview
• Basic Paper Formatting
• Basic Paper Elements
• Punctuation, Capitalization, Abbreviations, Apostrophes, Numbers, Plurals
• Tables and Figures
• Powerpoint Presentations
• Reference Page Format
• Periodicals (Journals, Magazines, Newspapers)
• Books and Reference Works
• Webpage on a Website
• Discussion Post
• Company Information & SWOT Analyses
• Dissertations or Theses
• ChatGPT and other AI Large Language Models
• Online Images
• Online Video
• Computer Software and Mobile Apps
• Missing Information
• Two Authors
• Three or More Authors
• Group Authors
• Missing Author
• Chat GPT and other AI Large Language Models
• Secondary Sources
• Block Quotations
• Fillable Template and Sample Paper
• Government Documents and Legal Materials
• APA Style 7th ed. Tutorials
• Additional APA 7th Resources
• Grammarly - your writing assistant
• Writing Center - Writing Skills This link opens in a new window
• Brainfuse Online Tutoring

APA 7th ed. Fillable Word Template and Sample Paper

• APA 7th ed. Template Download this Word document, fill out the title page and get writing!
• Sample Paper APA 7th ed. Our APA sample paper shows you how to format the main parts of a basic research paper.
• APA 7th Sample Papers from Purdue Owl
• << Previous: Block Quotations
• Next: Government Documents and Legal Materials >>
• Last Updated: May 3, 2024 2:22 PM
• URL: https://national.libguides.com/apa_7th

Reference management. Clean and simple.

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

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

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!

21 Legit Research Databases for Free Journal Articles in 2024

#scribendiinc

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

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."

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.

Get Professional Academic Editing

Hire an expert academic editor , or get a free sample, about the author.

Scribendi's in-house editors work with writers from all over the globe to perfect their writing. They know that no piece of writing is complete without a professional edit, and they love to see a good piece of writing transformed into a great one. Scribendi's in-house editors are unrivaled in both experience and education, having collectively edited millions of words and obtained numerous degrees. They love consuming caffeinated beverages, reading books of various genres, and relaxing in quiet, dimly lit spaces.

Have You Read?

"The Complete Beginner's Guide to Academic Writing"

Related Posts

How to Write a Research Proposal

How to Write a Scientific Paper

How to Write a Thesis or Dissertation

Upload your file(s) so we can calculate your word count, or enter your word count manually.

We will also recommend a service based on the file(s) you upload.

English is not my first language. I need English editing and proofreading so that I sound like a native speaker.

I need to have my journal article, dissertation, or term paper edited and proofread, or I need help with an admissions essay or proposal.

I have a novel, manuscript, play, or ebook. I need editing, copy editing, proofreading, a critique of my work, or a query package.

I need editing and proofreading for my white papers, reports, manuals, press releases, marketing materials, and other business documents.

I need to have my essay, project, assignment, or term paper edited and proofread.

I want to sound professional and to get hired. I have a resume, letter, email, or personal document that I need to have edited and proofread.

 Prices include your personal % discount.

 Prices include % sales tax ( ).

Free and Accessible Resources for Students: Overview

• Open Access Books
• Open Access Databases
• Free Citation Tools
• Additional Resources

Header Image

How to Use this Guide

This guide includes resources on:

• free textbooks
• open access journals and databases
• free citation tools
• citation and research guides

Frequently Asked Questions

What is open access (OA)? Open access refers to a set of practices and principles that support free access to scholarly research and ideas. Some books, journals, and databases maintain OA status in order to ensure that students and researchers can access materials without any barriers. 

What is an open educational resource (OER)? An open educational resource is an educational material (such as a textbook) that is freely available for use or re-use. To qualify as OERs, materials must be freely available for copying, adapting, or distributing.

What is Creative Commons (CC)? Creative Commons is a nonprofit licensing program for open materials.

• Next: Open Access Books >>
• Last Updated: Apr 19, 2023 1:56 PM
• URL: https://paperpile.libguides.com/free-student-resources

• Link to facebook
• Link to linkedin
• Link to twitter
• Link to youtube
• 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.

Find this useful?

Subscribe to our newsletter and get writing tips from our editors straight to your inbox.

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.

Share this article:

Post A New Comment

Got content that needs a quick turnaround? Let us polish your work. Explore our editorial business services.

How to insert a text box in a google doc.

Google Docs is a powerful collaborative tool, and mastering its features can significantly enhance your...

2-minute read

How to Cite the CDC in APA

If you’re writing about health issues, you might need to reference the Centers for Disease...

5-minute read

Six Product Description Generator Tools for Your Product Copy

Introduction If you’re involved with ecommerce, you’re likely familiar with the often painstaking process of...

What Is a Content Editor?

Are you interested in learning more about the role of a content editor and the...

4-minute read

The Benefits of Using an Online Proofreading Service

Proofreading is important to ensure your writing is clear and concise for your readers. Whether...

6 Online AI Presentation Maker Tools

Creating presentations can be time-consuming and frustrating. Trying to construct a visually appealing and informative...

Make sure your writing is the best it can be with our expert English proofreading and editing.

Explore millions of high-quality primary sources and images from around the world, including artworks, maps, photographs, and more.

Explore migration issues through a variety of media types

• Part of The Streets are Talking: Public Forms of Creative Expression from Around the World
• Part of The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Winter 2020)
• Part of Cato Institute (Aug. 3, 2021)
• Part of University of California Press
• Part of Open: Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture
• Part of Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Winter 2012)
• Part of R Street Institute (Nov. 1, 2020)
• Part of Leuven University Press
• Part of UN Secretary-General Papers: Ban Ki-moon (2007-2016)
• Part of Perspectives on Terrorism, Vol. 12, No. 4 (August 2018)
• Part of Leveraging Lives: Serbia and Illegal Tunisian Migration to Europe, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Mar. 1, 2023)
• Part of UCL Press

Harness the power of visual materials—explore more than 3 million images now on JSTOR.

Enhance your scholarly research with underground newspapers, magazines, and journals.

Explore collections in the arts, sciences, and literature from the world’s leading museums, archives, and scholars.

How To Write A Research Paper

Step-By-Step Tutorial With Examples + FREE Template

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) | Expert Reviewer: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | March 2024

For many students, crafting a strong research paper from scratch can feel like a daunting task – and rightly so! In this post, we’ll unpack what a research paper is, what it needs to do , and how to write one – in three easy steps. 🙂 

Overview: Writing A Research Paper

What (exactly) is a research paper.

• How to write a research paper
• Stage 1 : Topic & literature search
• Stage 2 : Structure & outline
• Stage 3 : Iterative writing
• Key takeaways

Let’s start by asking the most important question, “ What is a research paper? ”.

Simply put, a research paper is a scholarly written work where the writer (that’s you!) answers a specific question (this is called a research question ) through evidence-based arguments . Evidence-based is the keyword here. In other words, a research paper is different from an essay or other writing assignments that draw from the writer’s personal opinions or experiences. With a research paper, it’s all about building your arguments based on evidence (we’ll talk more about that evidence a little later).

Now, it’s worth noting that there are many different types of research papers , including analytical papers (the type I just described), argumentative papers, and interpretative papers. Here, we’ll focus on analytical papers , as these are some of the most common – but if you’re keen to learn about other types of research papers, be sure to check out the rest of the blog .

With that basic foundation laid, let’s get down to business and look at how to write a research paper .

Overview: The 3-Stage Process

While there are, of course, many potential approaches you can take to write a research paper, there are typically three stages to the writing process. So, in this tutorial, we’ll present a straightforward three-step process that we use when working with students at Grad Coach.

These three steps are:

• Finding a research topic and reviewing the existing literature
• Developing a provisional structure and outline for your paper, and
• Writing up your initial draft and then refining it iteratively

Let’s dig into each of these.

Need a helping hand?

Step 1: Find a topic and review the literature

As we mentioned earlier, in a research paper, you, as the researcher, will try to answer a question . More specifically, that’s called a research question , and it sets the direction of your entire paper. What’s important to understand though is that you’ll need to answer that research question with the help of high-quality sources – for example, journal articles, government reports, case studies, and so on. We’ll circle back to this in a minute.

The first stage of the research process is deciding on what your research question will be and then reviewing the existing literature (in other words, past studies and papers) to see what they say about that specific research question. In some cases, your professor may provide you with a predetermined research question (or set of questions). However, in many cases, you’ll need to find your own research question within a certain topic area.

Finding a strong research question hinges on identifying a meaningful research gap – in other words, an area that’s lacking in existing research. There’s a lot to unpack here, so if you wanna learn more, check out the plain-language explainer video below.

Once you’ve figured out which question (or questions) you’ll attempt to answer in your research paper, you’ll need to do a deep dive into the existing literature – this is called a “ literature search ”. Again, there are many ways to go about this, but your most likely starting point will be Google Scholar .

If you’re new to Google Scholar, think of it as Google for the academic world. You can start by simply entering a few different keywords that are relevant to your research question and it will then present a host of articles for you to review. What you want to pay close attention to here is the number of citations for each paper – the more citations a paper has, the more credible it is (generally speaking – there are some exceptions, of course).

Ideally, what you’re looking for are well-cited papers that are highly relevant to your topic. That said, keep in mind that citations are a cumulative metric , so older papers will often have more citations than newer papers – just because they’ve been around for longer. So, don’t fixate on this metric in isolation – relevance and recency are also very important.

Beyond Google Scholar, you’ll also definitely want to check out academic databases and aggregators such as Science Direct, PubMed, JStor and so on. These will often overlap with the results that you find in Google Scholar, but they can also reveal some hidden gems – so, be sure to check them out.

Once you’ve worked your way through all the literature, you’ll want to catalogue all this information in some sort of spreadsheet so that you can easily recall who said what, when and within what context. If you’d like, we’ve got a free literature spreadsheet that helps you do exactly that.

Step 2: Develop a structure and outline

With your research question pinned down and your literature digested and catalogued, it’s time to move on to planning your actual research paper .

It might sound obvious, but it’s really important to have some sort of rough outline in place before you start writing your paper. So often, we see students eagerly rushing into the writing phase, only to land up with a disjointed research paper that rambles on in multiple

Now, the secret here is to not get caught up in the fine details . Realistically, all you need at this stage is a bullet-point list that describes (in broad strokes) what you’ll discuss and in what order. It’s also useful to remember that you’re not glued to this outline – in all likelihood, you’ll chop and change some sections once you start writing, and that’s perfectly okay. What’s important is that you have some sort of roadmap in place from the start.

At this stage you might be wondering, “ But how should I structure my research paper? ”. Well, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution here, but in general, a research paper will consist of a few relatively standardised components:

• Introduction
• Literature review
• Methodology

Let’s take a look at each of these.

First up is the introduction section . As the name suggests, the purpose of the introduction is to set the scene for your research paper. There are usually (at least) four ingredients that go into this section – these are the background to the topic, the research problem and resultant research question , and the justification or rationale. If you’re interested, the video below unpacks the introduction section in more detail. 

The next section of your research paper will typically be your literature review . Remember all that literature you worked through earlier? Well, this is where you’ll present your interpretation of all that content . You’ll do this by writing about recent trends, developments, and arguments within the literature – but more specifically, those that are relevant to your research question . The literature review can oftentimes seem a little daunting, even to seasoned researchers, so be sure to check out our extensive collection of literature review content here .

With the introduction and lit review out of the way, the next section of your paper is the research methodology . In a nutshell, the methodology section should describe to your reader what you did (beyond just reviewing the existing literature) to answer your research question. For example, what data did you collect, how did you collect that data, how did you analyse that data and so on? For each choice, you’ll also need to justify why you chose to do it that way, and what the strengths and weaknesses of your approach were.

Now, it’s worth mentioning that for some research papers, this aspect of the project may be a lot simpler . For example, you may only need to draw on secondary sources (in other words, existing data sets). In some cases, you may just be asked to draw your conclusions from the literature search itself (in other words, there may be no data analysis at all). But, if you are required to collect and analyse data, you’ll need to pay a lot of attention to the methodology section. The video below provides an example of what the methodology section might look like.

By this stage of your paper, you will have explained what your research question is, what the existing literature has to say about that question, and how you analysed additional data to try to answer your question. So, the natural next step is to present your analysis of that data . This section is usually called the “results” or “analysis” section and this is where you’ll showcase your findings.

Depending on your school’s requirements, you may need to present and interpret the data in one section – or you might split the presentation and the interpretation into two sections. In the latter case, your “results” section will just describe the data, and the “discussion” is where you’ll interpret that data and explicitly link your analysis back to your research question. If you’re not sure which approach to take, check in with your professor or take a look at past papers to see what the norms are for your programme.

Alright – once you’ve presented and discussed your results, it’s time to wrap it up . This usually takes the form of the “ conclusion ” section. In the conclusion, you’ll need to highlight the key takeaways from your study and close the loop by explicitly answering your research question. Again, the exact requirements here will vary depending on your programme (and you may not even need a conclusion section at all) – so be sure to check with your professor if you’re unsure.

Step 3: Write and refine

Finally, it’s time to get writing. All too often though, students hit a brick wall right about here… So, how do you avoid this happening to you?

Well, there’s a lot to be said when it comes to writing a research paper (or any sort of academic piece), but we’ll share three practical tips to help you get started.

First and foremost , it’s essential to approach your writing as an iterative process. In other words, you need to start with a really messy first draft and then polish it over multiple rounds of editing. Don’t waste your time trying to write a perfect research paper in one go. Instead, take the pressure off yourself by adopting an iterative approach.

Secondly , it’s important to always lean towards critical writing , rather than descriptive writing. What does this mean? Well, at the simplest level, descriptive writing focuses on the “ what ”, while critical writing digs into the “ so what ” – in other words, the implications. If you’re not familiar with these two types of writing, don’t worry! You can find a plain-language explanation here.

Last but not least, you’ll need to get your referencing right. Specifically, you’ll need to provide credible, correctly formatted citations for the statements you make. We see students making referencing mistakes all the time and it costs them dearly. The good news is that you can easily avoid this by using a simple reference manager . If you don’t have one, check out our video about Mendeley, an easy (and free) reference management tool that you can start using today.

Recap: Key Takeaways

We’ve covered a lot of ground here. To recap, the three steps to writing a high-quality research paper are:

• To choose a research question and review the literature
• To plan your paper structure and draft an outline
• To take an iterative approach to writing, focusing on critical writing and strong referencing

Remember, this is just a b ig-picture overview of the research paper development process and there’s a lot more nuance to unpack. So, be sure to grab a copy of our free research paper template to learn more about how to write a research paper.

You Might Also Like:

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

• Print Friendly

Journal of Student Research

Journal of Student Research (JSR) is an Academic, Multidisciplinary, and Faculty-reviewed Journal (Houston, Texas) devoted to the Rapid Dissemination of Current Research Published by High School Edition , Undergraduate and Graduate students.

Articles Indexed in Scholarly Databases

The journal seeks articles that are novel, integrative, and accessible to a broad audience, including an array of disciplines. The content of the journal ranges from Applied research to Theoretical research. In general, papers on all topics are welcome to submit. The journal uses an automated process from manuscript submission to publication. Manuscript submission, peer review, and publication are all handled online, and the journal automates all clerical steps during peer review.

Trusted By Student Authors Globally

Focus and Scope

Students strive to be successful at publications, and with JSR, authors aspiring to publish will receive scholarly feedback after the reviews of their submissions are received. This feedback will help authors identify areas of improvement to their submission and help them better understand the process to be successful at publication. Once published, we strive to provide a global platform for our authors to showcase their work.

Faculty-Refereed Review Process

This journal uses a double-blind review, which means that both the reviewer and author identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process. Authors need to ensure that their manuscripts do not give away their identity to facilitate this. To find out more about the review process, please visit the  Author Guidelines  page. We invite teachers and faculty interested in reviewing articles for this journal; please visit our  Reviewers  page for more information.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides access to its published content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Learn more about  Open Access .

Authors Retain Copyright

Articles published in this journal are under a  Creative Commons License , and the authors retain the copyright to their work.

Announcements

Call for papers: volume 13 issue 3.

If you are an undergraduate or graduate student at a college or university aspiring to publish, we are accepting submissions. Submit Your Article Now!

Deadline: 11:59 p.m. May 31, 2024

How To Write A Research Paper

Research Paper Example

Research Paper Example - Examples for Different Formats

Published on: Jun 12, 2021

Last updated on: Feb 6, 2024

People also read

How to Write a Research Paper Step by Step

How to Write a Proposal For a Research Paper in 10 Steps

A Comprehensive Guide to Creating a Research Paper Outline

Types of Research - Methodologies and Characteristics

300+ Engaging Research Paper Topics to Get You Started

Interesting Psychology Research Topics & Ideas

Qualitative Research - Types, Methods & Examples

Understanding Quantitative Research - Definition, Types, Examples, And More

How To Start A Research Paper - Steps With Examples

How to Write an Abstract That Captivates Your Readers

How To Write a Literature Review for a Research Paper | Steps & Examples

Types of Qualitative Research Methods - An Overview

Understanding Qualitative vs. Quantitative Research - A Complete Guide

How to Cite a Research Paper in Different Citation Styles

Easy Sociology Research Topics for Your Next Project

200+ Outstanding History Research Paper Topics With Expert Tips

How To Write a Hypothesis in a Research Paper | Steps & Examples

How to Write an Introduction for a Research Paper - A Step-by-Step Guide

How to Write a Good Research Paper Title

How to Write a Conclusion for a Research Paper in 3 Simple Steps

How to Write an Abstract For a Research Paper with Examples

How To Write a Thesis For a Research Paper Step by Step

How to Write a Discussion For a Research Paper | Objectives, Steps & Examples

How to Write the Results Section of a Research Paper - Structure and Tips

How to Write a Problem Statement for a Research Paper in 6 Steps

How To Write The Methods Section of a Research Paper Step-by-Step

How to Find Sources For a Research Paper | A Guide

Share this article

Writing a research paper is the most challenging task in a student's academic life. researchers face similar writing process hardships, whether the research paper is to be written for graduate or masters.

A research paper is a writing type in which a detailed analysis, interpretation, and evaluation are made on the topic. It requires not only time but also effort and skills to be drafted correctly.

If you are working on your research paper for the first time, here is a collection of examples that you will need to understand the paper’s format and how its different parts are drafted. Continue reading the article to get free research paper examples.

On This Page On This Page -->

Research Paper Example for Different Formats

A research paper typically consists of several key parts, including an introduction, literature review, methodology, results, and annotated bibliography .

When writing a research paper (whether quantitative research or qualitative research ), it is essential to know which format to use to structure your content. Depending on the requirements of the institution, there are mainly four format styles in which a writer drafts a research paper:

Let’s look into each format in detail to understand the fundamental differences and similarities.

Research Paper Example APA

If your instructor asks you to provide a research paper in an APA format, go through the example given below and understand the basic structure. Make sure to follow the format throughout the paper.

APA Research Paper Sample (PDF)

Research Paper Example MLA

Another widespread research paper format is MLA. A few institutes require this format style as well for your research paper. Look at the example provided of this format style to learn the basics.

MLA Research Paper Sample (PDF)

Research Paper Example Chicago

Unlike MLA and APA styles, Chicago is not very common. Very few institutions require this formatting style research paper, but it is essential to learn it. Look at the example given below to understand the formatting of the content and citations in the research paper.

Chicago Research Paper Sample (PDF)

Research Paper Example Harvard

Learn how a research paper through Harvard formatting style is written through this example. Carefully examine how the cover page and other pages are structured.

Harvard Research Paper Sample (PDF)

Examples for Different Research Paper Parts

A research paper is based on different parts. Each part plays a significant role in the overall success of the paper. So each chapter of the paper must be drafted correctly according to a format and structure.

Below are examples of how different sections of the research paper are drafted.

Research Proposal Example

A research proposal is a plan that describes what you will investigate, its significance, and how you will conduct the study.

Research Proposal Sample (PDF)

Abstract Research Paper Example

An abstract is an executive summary of the research paper that includes the purpose of the research, the design of the study, and significant research findings.

It is a small section that is based on a few paragraphs. Following is an example of the abstract to help you draft yours professionally.

Abstract Research Paper Sample (PDF)

Literature Review Research Paper Example

A literature review in a research paper is a comprehensive summary of the previous research on your topic. It studies sources like books, articles, journals, and papers on the relevant research problem to form the basis of the new research.

Writing this section of the research paper perfectly is as important as any part of it.

Literature Review in Research Sample (PDF)

Methods Section of Research Paper Example

The method section comes after the introduction of the research paper that presents the process of collecting data. Basically, in this section, a researcher presents the details of how your research was conducted.

Methods Section in Research Sample (PDF)

Research Paper Conclusion Example

The conclusion is the last part of your research paper that sums up the writer’s discussion for the audience and leaves an impression. This is how it should be drafted:

Research Paper Conclusion Sample (PDF)

Research Paper Examples for Different Fields

The research papers are not limited to a particular field. They can be written for any discipline or subject that needs a detailed study.

In the following section, various research paper examples are given to show how they are drafted for different subjects.

Science Research Paper Example

Are you a science student that has to conduct research? Here is an example for you to draft a compelling research paper for the field of science.

Science Research Paper Sample (PDF)

History Research Paper Example

Conducting research and drafting a paper is not only bound to science subjects. Other subjects like history and arts require a research paper to be written as well. Observe how research papers related to history are drafted.

History Research Paper Sample (PDF)

Psychology Research Paper Example

If you are a psychology student, look into the example provided in the research paper to help you draft yours professionally.

Psychology Research Paper Sample (PDF)

Research Paper Example for Different Levels

Writing a research paper is based on a list of elements. If the writer is not aware of the basic elements, the process of writing the paper will become daunting. Start writing your research paper taking the following steps:

• Choose a topic
• Form a strong thesis statement
• Conduct research
• Develop a research paper outline

Once you have a plan in your hand, the actual writing procedure will become a piece of cake for you.

No matter which level you are writing a research paper for, it has to be well structured and written to guarantee you better grades.

If you are a college or a high school student, the examples in the following section will be of great help.

Research Paper Outline (PDF)

Research Paper Example for College

Pay attention to the research paper example provided below. If you are a college student, this sample will help you understand how a winning paper is written.

College Research Paper Sample (PDF)

Research Paper Example for High School

Expert writers of CollegeEssay.org have provided an excellent example of a research paper for high school students. If you are struggling to draft an exceptional paper, go through the example provided.

High School Research Paper Sample (PDF)

Examples are essential when it comes to academic assignments. If you are a student and aim to achieve good grades in your assignments, it is suggested to get help from  CollegeEssay.org .

We are the best writing company that delivers essay help for students by providing free samples and writing assistance.

Professional writers have your back, whether you are looking for guidance in writing a lab report, college essay, or research paper.

Simply hire a writer by placing your order at the most reasonable price. You can also take advantage of our essay writer to enhance your writing skills.

Nova A. (Literature, Marketing)

As a Digital Content Strategist, Nova Allison has eight years of experience in writing both technical and scientific content. With a focus on developing online content plans that engage audiences, Nova strives to write pieces that are not only informative but captivating as well.

Paper Due? Why Suffer? That’s our Job!

Keep reading

Legal & Policies

• Privacy Policy
• Cookies Policy
• Terms of Use
• Refunds & Cancellations
• Our Writers
• Success Stories
• Our Guarantees
• Affiliate Program
• Referral Program
• AI Essay Writer

Disclaimer: All client orders are completed by our team of highly qualified human writers. The essays and papers provided by us are not to be used for submission but rather as learning models only.

Totally Free Essay Database

Most popular subjects.

• Film Studies (1736)
• Paintings (519)
• Music (462)
• Management (5603)
• Case Study (4335)
• Company Analysis (3057)
• Cultural Studies (617)
• Cultural Issues (219)
• Ethnicity Studies (178)
• Architecture (412)
• Fashion (202)
• Construction (132)

Diet & Nutrition

• Nutrition (347)
• Food Safety (153)
• World Cuisines & Food Culture (103)
• Economic Systems & Principles (923)
• Finance (675)
• Investment (560)
• Education Issues (774)
• Education Theories (743)
• Teacher Career (428)

Entertainment & Media

• Advertising (436)
• Documentaries (395)
• Media and Society (382)

Environment

• Environmental Studies (605)
• Ecology (586)
• Environmental Management (438)

Family, Life & Experiences

• Personal Experiences (355)
• Parenting (224)
• Marriage (171)

Health & Medicine

• Nursing (2894)
• Healthcare Research (2480)
• Public Health (1886)
• United States (1503)
• World History (1105)
• Criminology (1021)
• Criminal Law (896)
• Business & Corporate Law (708)

Linguistics

• Languages (199)
• Language Use (173)
• Language Acquisition (153)
• American Literature (2045)
• World Literature (1485)
• Poems (904)
• Philosophical Theories (494)
• Philosophical Concept (379)
• Philosophers (287)

Politics & Government

• Government (1508)
• International Relations (1138)
• Social & Political Theory (614)
• Psychological Issues (1100)
• Cognition and Perception (594)
• Behavior (573)
• Religion, Culture & Society (803)
• World Religions (385)
• Theology (354)
• Biology (813)
• Scientific Method (787)
• Chemistry (418)
• Sociological Issues (2117)
• Sociological Theories (1146)
• Communications (890)
• Sports Culture (171)
• Sports Science (151)
• Sport Games (112)

Tech & Engineering

• Other Technology (602)
• Project Management (567)
• Technology Effect (526)
• Hospitality Industry (162)
• Trips and Tours (153)
• Tourism Destinations (122)

Transportation

• Air Transport (174)
• Transportation Industry (151)
• Land Transport (136)
• Terrorism (315)
• Modern Warfare (311)
• World War II (195)

Most Popular Essay Topics

Papers by essay type.

• Analytical Essay
• Application Essay
• Argumentative Essay
• Autobiography Essay
• Cause and Effect Essay
• Classification Essay
• Compare & Contrast Essay
• Creative Writing Essay
• Critical Essay
• Deductive Essay
• Definition Essay
• Descriptive Essay
• Evaluation Essay
• Exemplification Essay
• Explicatory Essay
• Exploratory Essay
• Expository Essay
• Inductive Essay
• Informative Essay
• Narrative Essay
• Opinion Essay
• Personal Essay
• Persuasive Essay
• Problem Solution Essay
• Proposal Essay
• Qualitative Research
• Quantitative Research
• Reflective Essay
• Response Essay
• Rhetorical Essay
• Satire Essay
• Self Evaluation Essay
• Synthesis Essay

Essays by Number of Pages

Papers by word count, view recent free essays, the conversation and blow out: images of political corruption.

• Subjects: Art , Films Comparison

Chatbots for Customer Services

• Subjects: AI , Tech & Engineering

Recommendations for Amazon Prime Video

• Subjects: Business , Strategic Marketing

AT&T Inc. Navigating Financial Risks

• Subjects: Business , Risk Management

Episode 1 of “Unnatural Causes” Documentary

• Subjects: Documentaries , Entertainment & Media

Public Housing Redevelopment Projects in New York

• Subjects: Economics , Housing
• Words: 1502

AT&T Inc.’s Organizational Profile

• Subjects: Business , Company Information

Virtual Listening During COVID-19

• Subjects: Business , Business Communication

Adenosine Triphosphate: Role in Muscular System

• Subjects: Biology , Sciences

Myanmar’s Ethnic Struggles and Opportunities

• Subjects: Human Rights , Sociology
• Words: 1713

Morality and Ethics of Assisted Suicide

• Subjects: Ethics , Sociology
• Words: 1131

Smitheford Pharmaceuticals in the Post-NAFTA Era

• Subjects: Business , Case Study

Traditional African Beliefs in a Religious Context

• Subjects: Religion , World Religions
• Words: 1124

Diabetes: Public Health Issue and Intervention

• Subjects: Health & Medicine , Public Health

LeBron James Sprite Cranberry Advertisement Analysis

• Subjects: Advertising , Entertainment & Media
• Words: 1237

The El Paso Community Water Sources

• Subjects: Environment , Environmental Management
• Words: 1191

Bioethics and the Divine Command Theory

• Subjects: Ethical Philosophy , Philosophy
• Words: 1471

Architecture: The International Style

• Subjects: Architecture , Design
• Words: 1109

Theranos: Incapable Technology

• Subjects: Other Technology , Tech & Engineering
• Words: 2229

Financial Instruments: The Main Types

• Subjects: Economics , Financial Reporting
• Words: 2238

Frequently asked questions

Free Online Plagiarism Checker

Possible plagiarism detected!

If you submit this paper, your institution may take disciplinary measures against you. The content requires editing and modification of parts. We know how to make it unique.

This is weighted average of all matches in your text. For example, if half of your paper is 100% plagiarized, your score would be 50%

Well done, your text is unique!

Need an essay written but don't have the time?

With PapersOwl you’ll get it professionally researched, written and received right on time!

Make it unique with

Increase your SEO performance with

Text matches these sources

Verifying your text. It’ll take approximately 10 seconds

Get a 100% accurate report from an advanced AI-powered writing assistant. Our plagiarism checker works with all common file formats.

• Deep Search
• Check in real time
• Data Safety

How to avoid plagiarism?

Proper citation style.

Avoid plagiarism by always listing the source and formatting it correctly when you are note-taking. Take care of the proper formatting and citation style when using content from outside sources.

Write on your own

Avoid borrowing and overusing large pieces of the content from outside sources, especially from Wikipedia. Write your own thoughts and use sources only to support your opinion (remember to cite it though!).

Rewriting Service

PapersOwl expert can rewrite up to 75% of your content, edit and proofread your paper to make it plagiarism free and ready to use.

Editing Service

PapersOwl expert can edit up to 50% of your content, proofread and polish your paper to make it plagiarism free and ready to use.

Writing Service

PapersOwl expert can rewrite your paper from scratch according to instructions and guidelines and make it plagiarism free and ready to use.

Suits your similarity index. Consider using it!

Plagiarism Checker Review

Get speed and uniqueness when you use the free Papersowl plagiarism checker that accepts an unlimited word count compared to other platforms.

Online Plagiarism Checker For Students

Writing an academic paper can be challenging when you’re not sure if it’s original enough to pass a plagiarism check. Of course, students take information from various sites before writing their own text. Sometimes, it just so happens that certain parts are very similar to your resources, making your professor think that you’ve just copied work from somewhere. That’s why it’s crucial for any modern college or university student to ensure that their work has 100% original content to maintain academic integrity.

Luckily, a free plagiarism checker online can solve this issue quickly and easily. Many professional writing services use a plagiarism checker for research paper. However, students sometimes forget that they should too. But with so many options that pop up when you ask Google to “check my paper for plagiarism”, how do you choose the right one for detection? We’ve got the solution in the form of PapersOwl’s free plagiarism checker tool! Our simple tool makes it convenient to check any writing task without having to spend a dime. It works quickly and highly accurately, ensuring that you get the top grade you deserve. So, if you want to check plagiarism online before turning your task in, head over to our website and get started!

Accurate Check for Plagiarism with Percentage

Many students wishing to produce original content aren’t quite sure how to get an exact percentage of plagiarised text in their work. This percentage is important since many universities have a certain limit of non-unique words you can have in your essay for it to be considered okay. If your plagiarism search doesn’t give you the exact percentage, you can’t be sure if your assignment will go through or not.

When using a free plagiarism tool, it’s essential to have this data provided to you. Only when you have it can you decide which parts to change and which ones to chuck out to achieve your desired results. Plagiarized content is a big issue in modern educational institutions, so getting reliable and trustworthy results is vital. This is the most essential requirement when you check plagiarism.

PapersOwl’s plagiarism detection tool gives you all the information you need to fix plagiarized content. Whether you’ve fallen victim to accidental plagiarism or have tried to make your life easier by copying some text from different sources, you’ll get an accurate percentage with our plagiarism checker online. If you’re wondering how to check paper for plagiarism, it’s nothing complicated at all! Simply visit our site, paste your whole essay into the relevant text box or upload the text file, click on Check For Plagiarism, and you’ll get accurate plagiarism results in a matter of seconds. You’ll see the problematic parts with plagiarism detected highlighted, with links to where similar content exists. Our service with plagiarism detector will also give you the option to check my paper for plagiarism and then to hire a professional writer to fix your task quickly if you’re busy with other things!

The Fastest Plagiarism Checker Online

Gaining insight into duplicate content only works if you get your results quickly. There are so many free plagiarism software online that promise to do the job for you. However, a lot of them are clunky, slow, and inaccurate. How can you produce original work without similarity detection you can trust?

PapersOwl stands out in this regard because it will detect plagiarism in seconds. This is a plagiarism scanner that’s able to perform a Swift Check to give you a uniqueness check right there and then. It also conducts a Deep Search, going through millions of sources on the internet to check for plagiarism. A document of about 1500 words takes only about 10 seconds to get processed! You get a clear plagiarism score of how much text is plagiarized and how much is original. All the sources that your essay matches are listed based on how much similarity there is in your academic writing. And on top of that, you get a handy Make It Unique button that’ll take you to an order page where you can ask our expert writers to rewrite your work and make it 100% unique.

All of this is done almost instantly, allowing students to continue working on their assignments without missing a beat. Not every plagiarism detection software works this quickly, making ours the best one you’ll ever use.

Plagiarism Checker Helps Boost Your Grade

A lot of students make the mistake of considering their papers automatically free from plagiarism. After all, they’ve written it themselves, so how could it be problematic? What they don’t realize is that it’s very easy to borrow some information mistakenly. Turning such a paper in can cause multiple problems, as your professor might think you haven’t done the work at all.

That is why you should always use a plagiarism scanner to test for plagiarized content in your college papers. Our online plagiarism checker for students is designed for this exact purpose. A simple, free plagiarism check could help you check plagiarism, fix any mistakes you see, and submit high-quality text that no one will question.

Our plagiarism detector has a lot going for it. It makes plagiarism detection easier than ever before. Unlike copying and pasting each passage individually into Google, simply upload the whole file into our plagiarism checker free for students, and you don’t have to do anything else. All the matches are highlighted so you know what to change.

The plagiarism test will give you a uniqueness percentage too. This will help you figure out where you stand and how much time you need to adjust anything if required. So, using our copyright checker online free to check your writing is essential. This way, you’ll submit the task only when you’re sure it meets the level of uniqueness required by your school. As a result, your grades will drastically improve when you check for plagiarism.

Benefits of Free Plagiarism Checker for Students

Our professional online plagiarism checker work offers too many benefits to ignore. With our plagiarism detector, you can enjoy highly accurate results as a comprehensive report. The plagiarism checker for students is designed to help you achieve 100% uniqueness without hassle. Here are the key advantages you can enjoy when you check plagiarism free with our plagiarism detection tool:

It’s completely free! We know you are on a tight budget and should be able to check your paper for plagiarism without worrying about payments, so we’ve made the best similarity checker free for all!

Our software detects plagiarism swiftly. It’ll show you detailed results in as little as 10 seconds so you can continue working immediately.

The report from our plagiarism tool gives you access to all the links from where it has detected similarities in your work. You can head to the relevant sites and see which information you must rewrite to improve your results.

Our best free plagiarism checker doesn’t require any skills and presents its services in a simple-to-use interface that anyone can use.

The plagiarism test allows you to get professional help with your work if you’re short on time. Simply ask one of our writers to rewrite the problematic parts of your text and enjoy top grades.

With PapersOwl plagiarism detector, there’s no need to search the internet for an accurate tool. We have many satisfied students worldwide who can vouch for our plagiarism-checking services. Give our online plagiarism checker free tries as often as you want and see how easy it is to produce original essays without spending a penny!

Free Tools for Writing

PapersOwl is a well-known provider of all types of academic papers.

• Research paper
• Dissertation

and many more

• Stuck with a lot of homework assignments?
• Worried about making your work 100% plagiarism free?
• Looking for a writing help with affordable price?

How Does Plagiarism Checker Work?

• If you already have a completed text, all you need is just to copy-paste the whole thing in the special box of the chosen plagiarism tool or website, choose suitable settings (if any), then press “check for plagiarism”. It is quite simple and takes just a few moments.
• Once you have pressed “check for plagiarism”, the system will analyze your text and compare it with different sources to find similarities. As a rule, the duration depends on the text’s length. A standard free online plagiarism checker with percentage can give you the result within five minutes or less.
• When the system finishes the work you will be transmitted to the reporting page – it contains the comprehensive report on your work, a percentage of its uniqueness, and a list of sources on which similarities were detected. Often, such tools also highlight the overlaps that were found.

As you can see, it is simple. However, for the best and reliable result you have to be careful. There are tons of programs and online tools that can be used but keep in mind that many of them work differently and not all are good for you. To be confident in the truthfulness of the received result, you need to select the best plagiarism checker because only a professional and high-quality software can detect all similarities and give you a reasoned assessment.

Polish your paper and get rid of plagiarism!

We’ll change up to 75% of your paper, edit and proofread it.

• Reliable Editors
• Any Field of Study
• Fair Prices

Free Plagiarism Checker is rated 4.8 /5 based on 741 user reviews.

Want your voice to count in? Send us your review with all the details.

Advantages Of Plagiarism Checker By PapersOwl

Why choose us? Our service offers a professional online plagiarism checker with report that will provide you with a comprehensive report to make you confident in the 100% uniqueness of your paper. Our free plagiarism checker for students guarantees the best check and here are the key advantages of using our tool that prove this:

You don’t need to pay anything to check your paper for plagiarism because we know the value of original and unique works.

One of the main benefits of our antiplagiat checker online is that it works so fast that you will not even have enough time to make yourself a cup of coffee while it analyzes your text, and it is safe!

We use the latest and the best algorithms and software in order to provide you with an advanced check and help you receive the high-quality papers.

It is simple in use and won’t take much time!

Many students have already confirmed that our free tool is a great and convenient feature that helped them detect and fix errors that could lead to a failure. With us, you will no longer need to look for a different scanner!

Leaving already?

Get 10% off your first order!

* you'll see the discount on checkout page

OUR WRITERS

You can choose the writers after viewing information about them. Just select the writer whose experience is closest to your subject.

Completed orders: 727

Cushing′s Syndrome

• Paper Type: Essay (Any Type)
• Subject: Psychology

Completed orders: 1489

Rhetorical Analysis of Steve Jobs’ Commencement Address

• Subject: Literature

Completed orders: 776

Social media impact

• Subject: English

Completed orders: 923

Understanding Plagiarism and its Dangers in Academics

Completed orders: 874

Should the government raise the federal minimum wage?

• Subject: Law

Plagiarism Checker FAQ

Can i check my essay for plagiarism free online, can i use papersowl plagiarism checker as a student for free, can i check my research paper for plagiarism for free, will the papersowl plagiarism report be the same as at my university, what are the consequences of plagiarism, why wait place an order right now.

Simply fill out the form, click the button, and have no worries!

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Welcome to the Purdue Online Writing Lab

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

The Online Writing Lab at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service of the Writing Lab at Purdue. Students, members of the community, and users worldwide will find information to assist with many writing projects. Teachers and trainers may use this material for in-class and out-of-class instruction.

The Purdue On-Campus Writing Lab and Purdue Online Writing Lab assist clients in their development as writers—no matter what their skill level—with on-campus consultations, online participation, and community engagement. The Purdue Writing Lab serves the Purdue, West Lafayette, campus and coordinates with local literacy initiatives. The Purdue OWL offers global support through online reference materials and services.

A Message From the Assistant Director of Content Development 

The Purdue OWL® is committed to supporting  students, instructors, and writers by offering a wide range of resources that are developed and revised with them in mind. To do this, the OWL team is always exploring possibilties for a better design, allowing accessibility and user experience to guide our process. As the OWL undergoes some changes, we welcome your feedback and suggestions by email at any time.

Please don't hesitate to contact us via our contact page  if you have any questions or comments.

All the best,

Social Media

Facebook twitter.

Computer Science Student and Professor at University of Puget Sound Win Best Paper at Big Data Conference

Julia Kaeppel ’24 and Prof. David Chiu published their research on database cache management.

University of Puget Sound student Julia Kaeppel ’24 has always been interested in computer programming. As a kid, she was a member of her elementary school robotics team and got hooked on programming in middle school as a pathway toward making video games. Kaeppel’s lifelong interest in operating systems and programming later led to an exciting research opportunity at Puget Sound. As a rising junior, Kaeppel approached Professor of Computer Science David Chiu about the possibility of working on a summer research project He immediately had an idea for an impactful project they could tackle.

“I’ve been working on this database project for over a decade and I had an idea of where I wanted to go next with the research. It was just a matter of finding the right student because it required a unique skill set,” says Chiu. “That Julia is such a strong C programmer with the right skill set and an interest in operating systems and performance was pretty fortuitous.”

Databases often contain immense amounts of raw data. It takes a long time to search through all that data to find a given piece of information, so computers use caches to store previous results for reuse. Caches serve as shortcuts to get at relevant information quickly, but they have limited space. Chiu wanted to find the optimal sequence in which to dispatch the queries as well as the order in which to evict older cached results in an effort to improve query performance. That’s where Kaeppel’s research came in. With funding from a McCormick Summer Research grant, she was able to dive into the problem and spend 10 weeks trying to find a solution.

“Over the summer, we developed a couple of algorithms for reordering bitmap queries and we found that a lot of them didn’t work,” Kaeppel says. “However, we found that ordering queries by size from shortest to longest provided the greatest optimization. There’s an elegant simplicity to it.” 

The result is deceptively simple, but could be proven mathematically to maximize the number of times queries could be reused over time. Chiu and Kaeppel described their research in a paper that was accepted for publication at the 10th Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Conference on Big Data Computing, Applications, and Technologies, where it won the award for best paper.

“This conference only accepts 25 to 30% of all papers submitted. So, to be accepted and then to win a best paper award is a major accomplishment,” Chiu says. “Julia isn’t a Ph.D. student. She’s an undergrad—and yet her work beat out every other paper at the conference. It’s unprecedented in my research group.” 

Kaeppel credits Professor Chiu’s mentorship for helping her develop the tools she needed to tackle the research project—and for opening her eyes to the possibility of doing more research after graduating from Puget Sound.

“It was a great experience and definitely broadened my horizons. Even if I don’t go into academic research, I could see myself pursuing a career working with algorithms and optimizations,” Kaeppel says.

“Julia was a joy to work with. She is dedicated and has an intuition on problem solving that makes her a very natural researcher,” Chiu adds. “When we got a result that didn’t look right, she knew where to dig for answers. That’s not something I would typically expect from an undergrad. Julia was already at that level—and that made all the difference in making this publication possible.”

Going Polar

Cultural Exchange From Home

Are You My MAMU?

University of Puget Sound Students Experience Costa Rica’s Geologic Wonders

If Monkeys Could Talk

Moss goggles.

People Gotta Eat

University of Puget Sound Awarded $1.3 Million from The Mellon Foundation

Reacting to the Past

Summer in the Wet Lab

© 2024 University of Puget Sound

• 5 Best AI Research Paper Summarizers (May 2024)

Unite.AI is committed to rigorous editorial standards. We may receive compensation when you click on links to products we review. Please view our affiliate disclosure .

Table Of Contents

In the fast-paced world of academic research, keeping up with the ever-growing body of literature can be a daunting task. Researchers and students often find themselves inundated with lengthy research papers, making it challenging to quickly grasp the core ideas and insights. AI-powered research paper summarizers have emerged as powerful tools, leveraging advanced algorithms to condense lengthy documents into concise and readable summaries.

In this article, we will explore the top AI research paper summarizers, each designed to streamline the process of understanding and synthesizing academic literature:

1. Tenorshare AI PDF Tool

Tenorshare AI PDF Tool is a cutting-edge solution that harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to simplify the process of summarizing research papers. With its user-friendly interface and advanced AI algorithms, this tool quickly analyzes and condenses lengthy papers into concise, readable summaries, allowing researchers to grasp the core ideas without having to read the entire document.

One of the standout features of Tenorshare AI PDF Tool is its interactive chat interface, powered by ChatGPT. This innovative functionality enables users to ask questions and retrieve specific information from the PDF document, making it easier to navigate and understand complex research papers. The tool also efficiently extracts critical sections and information, such as the abstract, methodology, results, and conclusions, streamlining the reading process and helping users focus on the most relevant parts of the document.

Key features of Tenorshare AI PDF Tool:

• AI-driven summarization that quickly condenses lengthy research papers
• Interactive chat interface powered by ChatGPT for retrieving specific information
• Automatic extraction of critical sections and information from the paper
• Batch processing capabilities for handling multiple PDF files simultaneously
• Secure and private, with SSL encryption and the option to delete uploaded files

Elicit is an AI-powered research assistant that improves the way users find and summarize academic papers. With its intelligent search capabilities and advanced natural language processing, Elicit helps researchers quickly identify the most relevant papers and understand their core ideas through automatically generated summaries.

By simply entering keywords, phrases, or questions, users can leverage Elicit's AI algorithms to search through its extensive database and retrieve the most pertinent papers. The tool offers various filters and sorting options, such as publication date, study types, and citation count, enabling users to refine their search results and find exactly what they need. One of Elicit's most impressive features is its ability to generate concise summaries of the top papers related to the search query, capturing the key findings and conclusions and saving researchers valuable time.

Key features of Elicit:

• Intelligent search that understands the context and meaning of search queries
• Filters and sorting options for refining search results
• Automatic summarization of the top papers related to the search query
• Detailed paper insights, including tested outcomes, participant information, and trustworthiness assessment
• Inline referencing for transparency and accuracy verification

3. QuillBot

QuillBot is an AI-powered writing platform that offers a comprehensive suite of tools to enhance and streamline the writing process, including a powerful Summarizer tool that is particularly useful for condensing research papers. By leveraging advanced natural language processing and machine learning algorithms, QuillBot's Summarizer quickly analyzes lengthy articles, research papers, or documents and generates concise summaries that capture the core ideas and key points.

One of the key advantages of QuillBot's Summarizer is its ability to perform extractive summarization, which involves identifying and extracting the most critical sentences and information from the research paper while maintaining the original context. Users can customize the summary length to be either short (key sentences) or long (paragraph format) based on their needs, and the output can be generated in either a bullet point list format or as a coherent paragraph. This flexibility allows researchers to tailor the summary to their specific requirements and preferences.

Key features of QuillBot's Summarizer:

• AI-powered extractive summarization that identifies and extracts key information
• Customizable summary length (short or long) to suit different needs
• Bullet point or paragraph output for flexible formatting
• Improved reading comprehension by condensing the paper into its core concepts
• Integration with other QuillBot tools, such as Paraphraser and Grammar Checker, for further enhancement

4. Semantic Scholar

Semantic Scholar is a free, AI-powered research tool developed by the Allen Institute for AI that improves the way researchers search for and discover scientific literature. By employing advanced natural language processing, machine learning, and machine vision techniques, Semantic Scholar provides a smarter and more efficient way to navigate the vast landscape of academic publications.

One of the standout features of Semantic Scholar is its ability to generate concise, one-sentence summaries of research papers, capturing the essence of the content and allowing researchers to quickly grasp the main ideas without reading lengthy abstracts. This feature is particularly useful when browsing on mobile devices or when time is limited. Additionally, Semantic Scholar highlights the most important and influential citations within a paper, helping researchers focus on the most relevant information and understand the impact of the research.

Key features of Semantic Scholar:

• Concise one-sentence summaries of research papers for quick comprehension
• Identification of the most influential citations within a paper
• Personalized paper recommendations through the “Research Feed” feature
• Semantic Reader for in-line citation cards with summaries and “skimming highlights”
• Personal library management with the ability to save and organize papers

5. IBM Watson Discovery

IBM Watson Discovery is a powerful AI-driven tool designed to analyze and summarize large volumes of unstructured data, including research papers, articles, and scientific publications. By harnessing the power of cognitive computing, natural language processing, and machine learning, Watson Discovery enables researchers to quickly find relevant information and gain valuable insights from complex documents.

One of the key strengths of IBM Watson Discovery is its ability to understand the context, concepts, and relationships within the text, allowing it to identify patterns, trends, and connections that may be overlooked by human readers. This makes it easier to navigate and summarize complex research papers, as the tool can highlight important entities, relationships, and topics within the document. Users can create customizable queries, filter, and categorize data to generate summaries of the most relevant research findings, and the tool's advanced search capabilities enable precise searches and retrieval of specific information from large document libraries.

Key features of IBM Watson Discovery:

• Cognitive capabilities that understand context, concepts, and relationships within the text
• Customizable queries and filtering for generating summaries of relevant research findings
• Relationship identification to highlight important entities, relationships, and topics
• Significant time-saving by automating the discovery of information and insight

Empowering Researchers with AI-Driven Summarization Tools

The emergence of AI-powered research summarizers has transformed the way researchers and academics approach scientific literature. By leveraging advanced natural language processing, machine learning, and cognitive computing, these innovative tools enable users to quickly find, understand, and summarize complex research papers, saving valuable time and effort.

Each of these AI research summarizers offers unique features and benefits that cater to researchers' diverse needs. As these tools continue to evolve and improve, they will undoubtedly play an increasingly crucial role in empowering researchers to navigate the ever-expanding universe of scientific knowledge more efficiently and effectively.

5 Best AI SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) Generators in 2024

Alex McFarland is an AI journalist and writer exploring the latest developments in artificial intelligence. He has collaborated with numerous AI startups and publications worldwide.

You may like

5 Best B2B Customer Support Tools (May 2024)

5 Best AI Apps for Couples (May 2024)

10 Best AI Shopify Tools (May 2024)

10 Best AI Business Plan Generators (May 2024)

10 Best AI Tools for Google Sheets (May 2024)

Recent Posts

• Itamar Friedman, CEO & Co-Founder of CodiumAI – Interview Series
• Hungry for Data: How Supply Chain AI Can Reach its Inflection Point
• Hostinger Review – Is This The Most Affordable Premium Webhost?
• What is AlphaFold 3? The AI Model Poised to Transform Biology

• Share full article

Opinion Lydia Polgreen

The Student-Led Protests Aren’t Perfect. That Doesn’t Mean They’re Not Right.

Supported by

By Lydia Polgreen

Photographs by Mark Peterson

Ms. Polgreen is an Opinion columnist and a co-host of the “Matter of Opinion” podcast for The Times. Mr. Peterson is a photographer based in New York and a member of Redux Pictures.

• April 26, 2024

On Wednesday morning, on a corner across the street from Columbia University, a man dressed in black, a huge gold cross around his neck, brandished a sign that featured a bloodstained Israeli flag and the word “genocide” in capital letters. He was also shouting at the top of his lungs.

“The Jews control the world! Jews are murderers!”

I watched as a pro-Palestinian protester approached the man. “That is horribly antisemitic,” she said. “You are hurting the movement, and you are not a part of us. Go away.”

The man shouted vile, unprintable epithets back at her, but the woman, who told me she had come to New York from her home in Baltimore to support the protesting students, walked away.

Hours later, a well-known congressional reporter covering House Speaker Mike Johnson’s visit to Columbia’s campus posted a photograph of the same man. “One sign here at the Columbia protest,” the reporter, Jake Sherman, wrote. “This man is ranting about Jews controlling the universe.”

The man wasn’t at the Columbia protest. The university’s campus has been closed to outsiders for over a week — even as a journalist and an alumna, I had trouble getting in. He was, several people on social media told Sherman, a well-known antisemitic crank completely unconnected from what was unfolding on campus. Indeed, last week I had seen a man wearing an identical cross carrying a similarly lettered sign that read, “Google it! Jews vs. TikTok” protesting outside Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Lower Manhattan. He was, for the record, standing on the pro-Trump side of the protest area.

But the incident is emblematic of how difficult it has become to make sense of what is actually happening on college campuses right now. As the protests have spread to dozens of campuses and counting , competing viral clips on social media paint vastly different versions of what’s happening inside these pro-Palestinian camps. Are they violent conflict zones, filled with militant protesters who hurl antisemitic abuse and threaten Jewish students, requiring, as some political leaders have suggested, deployment of the National Guard? Or is it a giant love-fest of students braiding daisy chains and singing “Kumbaya”?

I tried to figure this out the only way I know how: by reporting. I happened to have been on campus on April 18, the day Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, decided to call in the New York Police Department to clear the protesters from campus, and I returned a week later to spend the day reporting on the protests and the mood on campus.

What I saw were moving, creative and peaceful protests by people seeking to end the slaughter in Gaza, where more than 34,000 people have died, a majority of them women and children. I also saw things that left me quite troubled and heard from Jewish students both inside and outside the camps navigating a campus fraught with emotions. But while reporting on the protests up close gave me insight into how unsettling some aspects of activism can be, it doesn’t mean the protesters’ actions are misguided. These young people seek a worthy cause: to end what may be the most brutal military operation for civilians in the 21st century.

In the days since Shafik called for the N.Y.P.D. to break up protests, copycat encampments have sprung up on dozens of campuses across the country, and at least 17 of them have faced police intervention. My social media feeds have filled with horrifying images of students and professors being violently dragged away by the police. In one especially shocking video from Emory University captured by CNN, a police officer shouts at Caroline Fohlin, a middle-aged economics professor: “Get on the ground! Get on the ground!” The officer grabs her and flips her onto the grass as she screams: “Oh my God! Oh my God!”

On Wednesday afternoon during his visit to campus, Johnson made it clear what he thought was happening there. He all but called the university a war zone and declared the protests as antisemitic, conflating, as many proponents of Israel do, opposition to Israel’s policies with hatred of Jews. “It’s detestable, as Columbia has allowed these lawless agitators and radicals to take over,” he said. “If this is not contained quickly and if these threats and intimidation are not stopped, there is an appropriate time for the National Guard. We have to bring order to these campuses.”

While Johnson was meeting with a group of Jewish students, I was wandering among the lawless agitators, who have been camping out on a lawn on campus. In one corner of the encampment, a small group of students sat cross-legged, discussing the poem “Kindness” by the Palestinian American poet Naomi Shihab Nye. Another group had broken out art supplies to reapply the paint to its Gaza Solidarity Encampment banner. Others were napping or doing yoga. There was a well-stocked food tent, with options for all — gluten-free, vegan, nut-free and more. I have spent more than my share of time in war zones. This felt more like an earnest folk music festival.

On campus, I spoke to Muslim and Arab students who told me how frightened and angry they were. I spoke to Jewish students who participated in the pro-Palestinian protests and scoffed at the notion that the protests endangered them. I also spoke to Jewish students who told me that they felt the protests targeted them as Jews and made them fear for their safety.

Whether you are watching student protesters on social media or experiencing the protests in person, the way you understand these protests depends on your perception of what they are protesting. It could not be otherwise. If you feel that what is happening in Gaza is a moral atrocity, the student protests will look like a brave stand against American complicity in what they believe is genocide — and a few hateful slogans amid thousands of peaceful demonstrators will look like a minor detail. If you feel the Gaza war is a necessarily violent defense against terrorists bent on destroying the Jewish state, the students will seem like collaborators with murderous antisemitism — even if many of them are Jewish.

I heard both of these perspectives from Columbia students themselves on campus. “When I sit in statistics class and I am hearing ‘globalize the intifada,’ ‘from the river to the sea and so on,’ I cannot study, and I cannot focus on the class,” Saar, a junior at Columbia who asked that I not include her last name, told me. “I don’t know who will sit behind me in class, who might follow me after class, and God knows what might happen. You’re living in fear all the time. People are hiding their faces. You don’t know who is who.”

David Pomerantz, a sophomore who was among the group that met with the House speaker, told me that he didn’t personally feel he was in imminent danger but worried about others. “I think especially my friends who are visibly Jewish, who walk around in kipa, get dirty looks, get chastised for that,” he said. “I think they do feel like they’re in real physical danger. It’s a problem that can’t continue.”

While Jewish students who object to the pro-Palestinian encampment navigate fear and uncertainty, those inside the camp are facing a different type of threat. I spoke to Jared, a Jewish student participating in the protests. He had given an interview in which his full name appeared, and he said someone in his family had received a threatening voice mail.

“They like to dress us up as a token minority or as self-hating Jews,” he told me. “But I was raised as a Jewish person to call attention to injustice whenever I see it. Palestinians should be the focus, not my safety on campus. The only threat to my safety comes from the administration.”

Just outside the campus gates, the scene was more tense. The protests have become a destination for opportunists of all kinds. Nasty purveyors of chaos. Gavin McInnes, the right-wing founder of the Proud Boys, turned up , student journalists reported. On Thursday, Christian nationalists descended on Columbia to stage their own, ostensibly pro-Israel protest, screaming through the campus gates to the student protesters inside: “You want to camp? Go camp in Gaza!” according to a reporter on the scene.

At times I saw pro-Israel protesters seek to provoke pro-Palestinian groups into confrontations. A white-haired man in a khaki military-style shirt with a small Israeli flag stitched onto the chest approached a group of protesters I was interviewing just off campus. They were standing around, not chanting or holding signs.

“Israel has had 400 Nobel Prize winners,” he falsely claimed (13 Israelis have won the prize), tapping the flag. “How many has your side won?”

One of the protesters, a man with a kaffiyeh wrapped around the top of his head, replied: “I don’t care about Nobel Prizes right now. I care about dead Palestinian babies.”

Interactions like those make up the flood of “evidence” we’re seeing online, much of it placed there by the moral combatants themselves. Some videos, like one that supposedly depicted a Jewish Yale student getting stabbed in the eye by a Palestinian flag, turn out to be misleadingly portrayed by the victim. Others depict what appears to be clear harassment of Jewish students, such as the one filmed outside the gates of Columbia’s campus where a protester shouted, “Go back to Poland,” at Jewish students and another declared that Oct. 7 would happen “10,000 times.” Many videos show peaceful, even joyful protests or feature Jewish students who support the pro-Palestinian protests and declare that they feel safe on campus.

What are we to make of these competing claims? Having spent the past week immersed in these protests, I understand the desire to fix upon some singular piece of evidence that will decode, definitively, their moral core. But there is plenty of evidence ready-made for any side to claim moral high ground here. The camps are on the whole peaceful but it must be acknowledged that problematic things are being said.

On Thursday, video from January began circulating of one of the student protest leaders at Columbia, Khymani James, saying that “the same way we are very comfortable accepting that Nazis don’t deserve to live, fascists don’t deserve to live, racists don’t deserve to live, Zionists, they shouldn’t live in this world,” and “be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” On Friday James released a statement apologizing for the video.

On Monday, after the arrest of more than 100 N.Y.U. protesters, the demonstrations outside Police Headquarters went on all night. I live nearby and went down to see the protest for myself. It was a different vibe from the night the Columbia students had been arrested. There were more chants, delivered with much tighter unison and at greater volume.

“From the river to the sea, Palestine is almost free,” one chant went.

“Move, cops. Get out the way. We know you’re Israeli trained.”

“There is only one solution: intifada revolution,” went another.

I winced upon hearing the last chant. Not so much the word intifada, which has many meanings and intonations depending on the context. But why choose the word “solution,” one so redolent of the Nazis’ “final solution,” which murdered six million Jews across Europe?

When the time came for a late-evening prayer, some protesters laid down their banners to use them as prayer rugs, turning toward Mecca, which in this case meant bowing down before a line of police officers in riot gear. After the prayer concluded, some of the men wandered over to the line of officers who stood behind barricades. They singled out one officer in particular, a dark-skinned man who they seemed to think was a fellow Muslim.

“There’s no way he is a Muslim and he supports the killing of 15,000 kids,” one of the protesters said (it’s estimated nearly 14,000 children have been killed in Gaza since the war began). “Impossible, unless he is not a Muslim.”

“May Allah forgive you, bro,” another said.

The officer stared straight ahead, betraying no reaction to what he was hearing. Standing next to him was another officer, a Black woman. Another protester seemingly shouted her way: “Your ancestors are ashamed of you. Your ancestors were murdered by colonizers, and you are here standing with the colonizers.”

Almost instinctively, I took umbrage at the sight of a group of light-skinned young men badgering a Black woman doing her job. Personally, I found these tactics unpleasant, even repellent. It made me uncomfortable. I can see how they may make someone feel unsafe. But to me, this discomfort came nowhere near constituting a crisis requiring extraordinary interventions, like bringing in the National Guard.

Pretending that there is no antisemitism whatsoever in the movement is foolish and self-defeating. Antisemitism is widespread, not to mention on the American right . It stands to reason that there are some people who hold antisemitic views among a mass movement of protesters.

It is easy when looking backward to remember the fight for a good cause as pure and untainted, even if it did not seem so at the time. In the same way, we now remember the Vietnam War as an American tragedy. The students at Columbia University who protested it seem, in retrospect, to have been right. But our memories elide some of their more outré tactics. A list of popular chants employed by antiwar protesters at a time when thousands of American soldiers were dying each year fighting in the war included things like “One side’s right. One side’s wrong. We’re on the side of the Viet Cong!” and “Save Hanoi. Lose Saigon. Victory to the Viet Cong!”

These slogans are sickening. But by 1968, when the protests reached their peak, the U.S. government had already realized, according to the Pentagon Papers, that the war was all but unwinnable. Yet its brutal killing machine ground on for five more years, and an additional 38,000 Americans and countless Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian people died pointless deaths in a senseless, futile war.

There are clear signs that Israel is prosecuting a war just as brutal and unwinnable as the United States did back then. Some people may not like the slogans, tactics or proposals of today’s pro-Palestinian protesters. But the truth is that a majority of Americans have qualms about Israel’s pitiless war to root out Hamas, whatever the consequences for civilians. As politicians send riot police onto campuses to try to smother a new protest movement, we’d do well to keep in mind why we’ve forgotten the ugliest aspects of the Vietnam protests: Those memories have been replaced, instead, by an enduring horror at what we did.

Mr. Peterson is a photographer based in New York and a member of Redux Pictures.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

Lydia Polgreen is an Opinion columnist and a co-host of the “ Matter of Opinion ” podcast for The Times.

Advertisement