ok kids, gather round for another episode of auntie vrabia’s academic advice.
say you’re working on a paper and you badly need this one article. but it’s not in any of the databases your library gives you access to. and you can’t find it on google. or, well, actually you can find it on google, but it directs you to this:
listen. it’s not just you. the mythical affluent academic who sees this and immediately thinks to themselves ‘yeah man time to pony up’ does not exist. no one any of us knows gets their articles this way.
but you still need that article, right? so what do you do? here’s two solutions to this capitalist problem you never asked for:
1. do you just need some definition, argument, specific bit of data or empirical result from that article? find another source you do have access to that cites it and then put this in your paper: ‘smith et al. (as cited in jones, 2015) argue that this business model is bullshit and a grand total of zero money is being made by publishers through this channel’. then in your references include jones (2015) and omit smith et al. i don’t recommend citing smith et al. like you’re pretending you’ve actually read their stuff because you don’t know what else is in there, so just play it safe. citing things this way when you can’t access the original source for whatever reason (including a fucking paywall) is perfectly acceptable and you won’t fail your class or be accused of plagiarism for doing it.
2. is it vitally important that you read the whole article from start to finish? EMAIL THE AUTHOR. after you’ve made super sure it’s really not available anywhere, contact them and ask for a copy. write a nice (short!) email along these lines:
dear [academic title][name],
i am a [student] at [university], currently working on a paper about [topic]. reading your article [title] would really help me develop my argument about [specific thing from their article] unfortunately it’s not available for access through our library services at the moment, so i was wondering if you would be willing to send me a copy for reference purposes. thank you.
best regards,
[your name]
there is no guarantee that this will work, or that they’ll even read your email (increase your chances by an estimated 37% by using your university email and putting ‘question about your article [title]’ in the subject line, we read that shit)
BUT. there’s actually a pretty good chance that it will work, and here’s why: if that $40+ article sells one copy on the publisher’s page, the authors don’t see a single solitary dime from it. not from one sale. not from 5,000 sales. we make nothing off our academic publications. so they’re not going to reply to you with ‘sorry kid, go buy my article, i get 20% royalties and it contributes to my livelihood’. plus, most of us really hate the idea of our articles being stuck behind paywalls instead of circulating and getting cited. contact the author. they know their articles’ copyright situation and usually if they give you express permission to cite them, even from stuff like drafts or working papers, you’re safe to do so.
a polite (short!!) email to an academic goes a long way. and even if you think this might not work, it still gives you a better shot at getting what you need than just sitting in the library and understandably crying into your hands.
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