from Hacker News

How to Get Hold of a Research Paper

by erwald on 3/1/23, 9:29 PM with 2 comments

• by mindcrime on 3/2/23, 2:08 AM

  Email an author to politely ask for a copy. Researchers spend a lot of time on their research and are usually happy to learn that somebody is eager to read it.

  Granted, n=1 anecdotes don't mean a whole lot, but the one time I emailed a researcher like this, they not only sent me the paper I was interested in, but later sent a couple of pre-prints of some new (related) research from their group. And then even later when I emailed again asking for some data files referenced in one of their publication, they happily forwarded the data in question to me. I think this was definitely a case of "they were thrilled that somebody else was actually interested in their research". YMMV, of course.

• by geenew on 3/2/23, 1:39 AM

  5 & 7 (getting in touch with the researcher, via website or email) have been the most successful for me, for hard-to-get papers.

  I'm not certain about this, but I believe that authors maintain personal redistribution rights in many cases, making the whole thing above-board.