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14 Websites to Download Research Paper for Free – 2024

Download Research Paper for Free

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2. z-library, 3. library genesis, 4. unpaywall, 5. gettheresearch.org, 6. directory of open access journals (doaj), 7. researcher, 8. science open, 10. internet archive scholar, 11. citationsy archives, 13. dimensions, 14. paperpanda – download research papers for free.

Collecting and reading relevant research articles to one’s research areas is important for PhD scholars. However, for any research scholar, downloading a research paper is one of the most difficult tasks. You must pay for access to high-quality research materials or subscribe to the journal or publication. In this article, ilovephd lists the top 14 websites to download free research papers, journals, books, datasets, patents, and conference proceedings downloads.

Download Research Paper for Free – 2024

14 best free websites to download research papers are listed below:

Sci-Hub is a website link with over 64.5 million academic papers and articles available for direct download. It bypasses publisher paywalls by allowing access through educational institution proxies.  To download papers Sci-Hub  stores papers in its repository, this storage is called Library Genesis (LibGen) or library genesis proxy 2024.

Visit: Working Sci-Hub Proxy Links – 2024

Z-Library is a clone of Library Genesis, a shadow library project that allows users to share scholarly journal articles, academic texts, and general-interest books via file sharing (some of which are pirated). The majority of its books come from Library Genesis, however, some are posted directly to the site by individuals.

Individuals can also donate to the website’s repository to make literature more widely available. Z-library claims to have more than  10,139,382 Books  and  84,837,646 Articles  articles as of April 25, 2024.

It promises to be “the world’s largest e-book library” as well as “the world’s largest scientific papers repository,” according to the project’s page for academic publications (at booksc.org). Z-library also describes itself as a donation-based non-profit organization.

Visit: Z-Library – You can Download 70,000,000+ scientific articles for free

The Library Genesis aggregator is a community aiming at collecting and cataloging item descriptions for the most part of scientific, scientific, and technical directions, as well as file metadata. In addition to the descriptions, the aggregator contains only links to third-party resources hosted by users. All information posted on the website is collected from publicly available public Internet resources and is intended solely for informational purposes.

Visit: libgen.li

Unpaywall harvests Open Access content from over 50,000 publishers and repositories, and makes it easy to find, track, and use. It is integrated into thousands of library systems, search platforms, and other information products worldwide. In fact, if you’re involved in scholarly communication, there’s a good chance you’ve already used Unpaywall data.

Unpaywall is run by OurResearch, a nonprofit dedicated to making scholarships more accessible to everyone. Open is our passion. So it’s only natural our source code is open, too.

Visit: unpaywall.org

GetTheResearch.org is an  Artificial Intelligence(AI)  powered search engine for search and understand  scientific articles  for researchers and scientists. It was developed as a part of the  Unpaywall  project. Unpaywall is a database of 23,329,737 free scholarly Open Access(OA) articles from over 50,000 publishers and repositories, and make it easy to find, track, and use.

Visit: Find and Understand 25 Million Peer-Reviewed Research Papers for Free

DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) was launched in 2003 with 300 open-access journals. Today, this independent index contains almost 17 500 peer-reviewed, open-access journals covering all areas of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Open-access journals from all countries and in all languages are accepted for indexing.

DOAJ is financially supported by many libraries, publishers, and other like-minded organizations. Supporting DOAJ demonstrates a firm commitment to open access and the infrastructure that supports it.

Visit: doaj.org

The researcher is a free journal-finding mobile application that helps you to read new journal papers every day that are relevant to your research. It is the most popular mobile application used by more than 3 million scientists and researchers to keep themselves updated with the latest academic literature.

Visit: 10 Best Apps for Graduate Students 

ScienceOpen  is a discovery platform with interactive features for scholars to enhance their research in the open, make an impact, and receive credit for it. It provides context-building services for publishers, to bring researchers closer to the content than ever before. These advanced search and discovery functions, combined with post-publication peer review, recommendation, social sharing, and collection-building features make  ScienceOpen  the only research platform you’ll ever need.

Visit: scienceopen.com

OA.mg is a search engine for academic papers. Whether you are looking for a specific paper, or for research from a field, or all of an author’s works – OA.mg is the place to find it.

Visit: oa.mg

Internet Archive Scholar (IAS) is a full-text search index that includes over 25 million research articles and other scholarly documents preserved in the Internet Archive. The collection spans from digitized copies of eighteenth-century journals through the latest Open Access conference proceedings and pre-prints crawled from the World Wide Web.

Visit: Sci hub Alternative – Internet Archive Scholar

Citationsy was founded in 2017 after the reference manager Cenk was using at the time, RefMe, was shut down. It was immediately obvious that the reason people loved RefMe — a clean interface, speed, no ads, simplicity of use — did not apply to CiteThisForMe. It turned out to be easier than anticipated to get a rough prototype up.

Visit: citationsy.com

CORE is the world’s largest aggregator of open-access research papers from repositories and journals. It is a not-for-profit service dedicated to the open-access mission. We serve the global network of repositories and journals by increasing the discoverability and reuse of open-access content.

It provides solutions for content management, discovery, and scalable machine access to research. Our services support a wide range of stakeholders, specifically researchers, the general public, academic institutions, developers, funders, and companies from a diverse range of sectors including but not limited to innovators, AI technology companies, digital library solutions, and pharma.

Visit: core.ac.uk

Dimensions cover millions of research publications connected by more than 1.6 billion citations, supporting grants, datasets, clinical trials, patents, and policy documents.

Dimensions is the most comprehensive research grants database that links grants to millions of resulting publications, clinical trials, and patents. It

provides up-to-the-minute online attention data via Altmetric, showing you how often publications and clinical trials are discussed around the world. 226m Altmetric mentions with 17m links to publications.

Dimensions include datasets from repositories such as Figshare, Dryad, Zenodo, Pangaea, and many more. It hosts millions of patents with links to other citing patents as well as to publications and supporting grants.

Visit: dimensions.ai

PaperPanda is a Chrome extension that uses some clever logic and the Panda’s detective skills to find you the research paper PDFs you need. Essentially, when you activate PaperPanda it finds the DOI of the paper from the current page, and then goes and searches for it. It starts by querying various Open Access repositories like OpenAccessButton, OaDoi, SemanticScholar, Core, ArXiV, and the Internet Archive. You can also set your university library’s domain in the settings (this feature is in the works and coming soon). PaperPanda will then automatically search for the paper through your library. You can also set a different custom domain in the settings.

Visit: PaperPanda

I hope, this article will help you to know some of the best websites to download research papers and journals for free.

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21 Legit Research Databases for Free Journal Articles in 2024

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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." They publish the journal Research Integrity and Peer Review , which publishes research on the subject.

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, and 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 you now might have a list of some 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.

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• 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Also: I've published 60 novels - and these 5 free writing tools helped make it possible

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Calmly Writer offers a free trial. To continue using the app, you'll have to drop a one-time $14.99 license fee . You can install Calmly Writer on Linux, MacOS, Windows, and ChromeOS.

2. Opera: Yes, a browser - for research

Including a web browser in a list of distraction-free tools might seem counterintuitive, but hear me out. It's inevitable: While writing, you'll have to do some research now and then. I regularly have to look things up when writing. For example, my current book series is set in Boston. Since I don't live in Boston, I need to check on street names, neighborhoods, and other facts that could distract readers if they're wrong. For that, I need a browser. 

Why Opera ? Two reasons: Workspaces and Aria. Workspaces is the best tab management system on the market. I have a Writing workspace, which I only use for -- you guessed it -- writing. When I'm writing, I don't leave that Workspace and I don't open social media, shopping, or other non-writing-related sites. 

Also: 5 reasons why Opera is my favorite browser (and you should check it out too)

Aria is Opera's built-in AI and I use it strictly for research. Why do I opt for Aria over a Google search? Because I can get the answers I need faster and without worrying about landing on sites overloaded with ads or other distractions. I can type " What is the average amount of snowfall in Boston between January and March?"  and get an immediate answer. Beyond research, I do not use AI in my writing (nor do I copy/paste anything from Aria's responses).

Opera is free and can be installed on Linux, MacOS, Windows, Android, and iOS.

3. Limit: Cut down on distracting sites

Speaking of web browsers: If you have trouble governing your web browser usage (especially on social media sites), consider using an extension like Limit , which allows you to set time limits on distracting sites. For instance, you could set a five-minute limit (the minimum) on Facebook, so every time you feel a need for a distraction, you can be sure it will only last five minutes. Any website can be added and you'll find 10 pre-configured sites (that are known for being distracting). 

Also: The best smart notebooks: Expert tested and reviewed

If you find yourself constantly doom-scrolling when you should be writing, Limit is a must. Limit is free and can be installed on Chromium-based and Firefox-based browsers .

4. Blanket: Ambient sounds instead of music

Every so often I need sound to keep me centered. The problem with listening to music when I write is that the tunes tend to color my prose, narration, and dialogue. Because of that, I would always have to switch to music that matched the tone of what I was working on. On top of that, I can't listen to music with lyrics because I might allow those words to inform my writing. 

Also: I listened to over 100 hours of music last year. These headphones sounded the best

What I now use instead is an app like Blanket , which creates ambient sounds like rain, storm, wind, waves, stream, birds, summer night, train, boat, city, coffee shop, fireplace, pink noise, white noise, and even custom sounds that you add. You can raise the volume of each sound to create a noise scape of different sounds, such as storms and waves or rain and coffee shops. 

Blanket is free and only available for Linux, but you'll find plenty of ambient sound apps for MacOS and Windows .

5. Pomodoro: Set a timer and - go!

Typically, I "time" my fiction-writing sessions by word count and not by time spent. I aim for 1,000 words per day. But once in a while, I'll do a writing sprint, where I'll set a time limit and just start writing stream of consciousness. This is a great writing exercise because it challenges you to not stop writing for a set period. It doesn't matter what you write, as long as you don't stop writing.

For that, I need a good timer and the Pomodoro timer on Linux is a great option. (If you're curious, the Pomodoro Technique is a time management system  that uses a kitchen timer to break work into intervals.) This timer is also an option for breaks. Set the timer for five minutes and give your brain a rest. 

Also: 5 ways to manage your time more effectively at work

Pomodoro is free to install on Linux. You'll find plenty of Pomodoro timers for MacOS and Windows . 

And there you have it, five apps I depend on when distractions become an issue. I'm confident that at least one of these tools will help you focus so you can get the words to the page more efficiently -- and without suffering under the weight of your mind's wanderlust.

This free Microsoft Office alternative has just as many productivity tools (including ChatGPT)

The best smart notebooks you can buy: expert tested, the best note-taking tablets: expert tested.

Tax Day 2024: What to know about extensions, free file, deadlines and refunds

Tax season has come and gone .

Monday was the last day for most taxpayers to file a 2023 return. 

Monday was also the last day to request an extension , an action that buys you six extra months to file and greatly reduces any potential penalties or interest charges you might face for filing late.

The IRS had received 101.8 million returns by April 5 and processed just over 100 million. The average refund to date is $3,011, compared with $2,878 last year at the same time.

Here's a recap of USA TODAY's live coverage of Tax Day 2024:

Tax deadline 2024 countdown

When is the deadline if i file an extension.

If you file an extension (which you'll need to do by April 15), you'll have until Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024 to file taxes.

In years where Oct. 15 falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, the deadline will take place the next business day, the IRS states.

Emily DeLetter

How should we file in 2025 if we get married this year?

If you're married, you can choose whether you want to file a joint return or file two individual returns. 

Filing a joint tax return means your income and your spouse's income get combined together. The joint income is subject to different tax brackets than single filers.

Importantly, filing jointly means you're both on the hook for the money you and your spouse owe to the IRS prior to your marriage. 

"When you file jointly, that is typically how you get the largest legitimate refund," says Scott Curley, co-CEO of FinishLine Tax Solutions, a tax consulting firm based in Houston.

That's because there are more tax deductions and credits married couples filing jointly are eligible for.

There are instances where filing separately makes more sense.

The tax code allows you to deduct out-of-pocket medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income, meaning if one half of the relationship has experienced significant health issues it may make sense to prepare separate returns.

Another situation where it may not make sense to file a joint return is if one spouse has a significantly lower income, Speiss says. That's because the lower-income spouse may be eligible for more itemized deductions by filing individually.

Elisabeth Buchwald

How much might I pay in taxes during my life?

The average American pays $524,625 in taxes in their lifetime , according to personal finance site Self Financial.

New Jersey residents pay $987,117 in lifetime taxes , the analysis found, the highest tab in the nation. Washington, D.C., comes second, with a lifetime tax burden of $884,820. Connecticut and Massachusetts are third and fourth, at $855,307 and $816,700.

The lowest-tax state is West Virginia, with a lifetime cost of $358,407.

The lifetime tax figure, $524,625, works out to about one-third of the average American's lifetime earnings, which add up to roughly $1.5 million.

Daniel de Visé

USA TODAY Fact-Check: Three false tax claims to avoid

The complexity of the filing process and various government financial initiatives has made the topic a popular source of misinformation.

The USA TODAY Fact-Check Team has debunked an array of such claims, here are three of them.

The claim: There are no laws requiring American citizens to pay income taxes

Our rating: False

The 16th Amendment gives Congress the power to collect federal income taxes. The power to enforce these tax laws has been delegated to the IRS, which imposes financial penalties on those who don't properly file their taxes.  Read more

The claim: Image shows an IRS memo stating that all tax collections since 1913 were illegal

There is no evidence such a memo existed. The IRS has no record of it, and the text of the memo contains factual errors about the lawsuit it references.  Read more

The claim: Residents in certain states will receive a fourth stimulus check on Nov. 30

The IRS said the Treasury Department did not issue a fourth round of stimulus checks in late 2023. Some states named in the post are sending rebates to eligible taxpayers, but those are not stimulus checks and don't match the figures listed in the post.  Read more

Tax season is confusing enough. Don’t fall for these false claims

BrieAnna J. Frank

What happens if my taxes are late?

If you forgot or missed the deadline for another reason, the standard penalty is 5% of any tax due for every month the return is late, up to 25% of the unpaid balance.

If you file a return but fail to pay any taxes you owe, or if you get an extension and don't pay (an extension to file is not an extension to pay,  the IRS reminds you ), you typically face a much smaller monthly penalty of 0.5% of any unpaid amount.

President Biden releases taxes

President Joe Biden  and first lady Jill Biden paid $146,629 in federal income taxes in 2023 after reporting income of $619,976, according to their joint tax return released Monday to mark the federal tax-filing deadline.

The first couple paid an effective federal tax rate of 23.7%.

It marks the 26th year that Biden has released federal tax returns during his public life.

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presumptive nominee, is again declining to release his latest federal tax returns after he broke from the bipartisan tradition of presidents disclosing the documents.

Joey Garrison

Is the post office open late on Tax Day?

In years past, tax filers who were filing at the last minute could often go to area post offices up until midnight on tax day and get a hand-stamped postmark, which showed they had beaten the deadline.

But that’s generally not the case these days.

One of the major reasons that post offices no longer stay open late on April 15 is that the majority of taxpayers file their returns electronically.

According to the IRS, in 2022 nearly 213.4 million returns and other forms were filed electronically, representing close to 81.2% of all filings. For individual tax returns, 93.8% were filed electronically.

Of course, you can always double-check with your local post office to see if by chance they are staying open late. Some post offices may extend their hours.

If you file by mail, your return must be postmarked by April 15, so get it in before the last collection time.

Celeste E. Whittaker - Cherry Hill Courier-Post a part of the USA TODAY NETWORK

2024 standard deduction

Tax day restaurant deals.

If you are hungry after filing your return, there are plenty of restaurants giving customers a tax break.

• California Pizza Kitchen is offering CPK Rewards customers $10 off when they spend $40 on Monday in support of those who "may literally need a Tax Break," the company said.
• Dave & Buster's is offering 50% off all food from April 15 through April 28 to customers who join the  D&B Rewards  program to celebrate the company's new menu launch.
• Hooters is offering 10 free wings with the purchase of 10 wings on Monday. The restaurant is also offering $4 Dos Equis draft beers and $4 "Legendary" Margaritas. HootClub Rewards  loyalty members are eligible to receive a free dessert up to $6.99 in value on Monday.
• Grimaldi's Pizzaria is $10.40 off any purchase of $30 at participating locations on Monday. The offer is valid for dine-in, to-go and online orders with code TAXDAY24.
• Round Table Pizza is offering customers 15% off any order $40 or more at participating locations on Monday.
• Fazoli's is offering six free breadsticks with a $5 purchase at participating locations with code Tax24.
• Customers can get a free sandwich as part of  Arby's Free Sandwich Month  on Tax Day. To redeem the free sandwich deal, orders must be placed online or on the  Arby's App . 

Gabe Hauari

2024 IRS tax brackets visualized

Where are the highest property taxes.

The typical American pays  1.02% of their home’s value in property taxes a year , according to the  U.S. Census Bureau

New Jersey had the largest median property tax bill for singe-family homes in 2023, according to CoreLogic . Connecticut, New York, New Hampshire and Massachusetts rounded out the top five states with the most expensive median property tax bill. Homeowners in West Virginia paid the smallest amount in property taxes on average, about $694 per year.

A separate analysis from  CoreLogic  found that the average homeowner in Westchester County, New York paid the most in property taxes last year, with a median value of $15,373.

In 2023, 13 of the 15 top counties with the most expensive property tax bills were in the greater New York City area, including surrounding cities and suburbs.

Sara Chernikoff

How are lottery winners taxed?

If you were one of the lucky people to win either a Powerball or Mega Millions prizes in 2023, you are certainly not out of the taxman’s reach .

Federal lottery taxes are determined by the income bracket the winnings fall into.

Currently the two highest income brackets are taxed at 37% for incomes over $578,125 and 35% for incomes over $231,250.

New York levies the highest state tax on wins at 10.9%, followed by Maryland (8.9%) and the District of Columbia (8.5%), according to Lottery USA.

There are ten states and territories that do not tax lottery winners. They are:

• New Hampshire
• Puerto Rico
• South Dakota

James Powel

Don't forget state taxes

If your state has income tax, you may not be done yet. State tax deadlines can vary but most follow federal deadlines, so your state tax return is likely also due April 15. 

Make sure to file your federal return first and it is accepted because you’ll likely need income information off that for your state return.

H&R Block resolves issues with electronic filing on tax deadline day

Tax software giant H&R Block said earlier issues with its electronic filing on Monday were resolved this afternoon.

"The issue affecting a small number of our downloadable desktop software users has been resolved," it said in a statement to USA Today. "We have notified our clients via an in-product message and as they reach out to customer service that they can now efile their return."

The statement also noted that most people who file taxes themselves with H&R Block use  hrblock.com  (its DIY Online edition), and that has been operational all day.

According to Downdetector.com, H&R Block's issues began on Sunday evening and spilled over into today.

How many people will file for an extension?

The IRS estimates 19 million taxpayers will file for an automatic extension. The extension gives taxpayers until October 15 to file their taxes. 

The IRS reminds people an extension to file is not an extension to pay. If you think you’ll owe money, then you must submit a payment to ensure you don’t incur an underpayment penalty or late fee.

Taxpayers in Maine and Massachusetts have until April 17 to file and pay taxes due this year. This is because these states observe the Patriots’ Day holiday on April 15 this year, and April 16 is the Emancipation Day holiday in the District of Columbia, the IRS says. 

There are also automatic extensions for some taxpayers impacted by natural disasters.

IRS tax brackets for 2024

After preparing your return for 2023, you may be wondering whether to change your withholding for 2024. One factor to consider is the new tax brackets .

For the top individual tax bracket, the 2024 income threshold was raised from $578,126 to $609,351. This means that more than $30,000 in individual income will be taxed at 35%, instead of 37%.

Here are the other 2024 tax brackets for individual filers:

• 35% for incomes over $243,725. 
• 32% for incomes over $191,950.
• 24% for incomes over $100,525.
• 22% for incomes over $47,150.
• 12% for incomes over $11,600. 
• 10% for income below $11,600.

And here are the 2024 tax brackets for married couples filing joint returns:

• 37% for income greater than $731,200. 
• 35% for incomes over $487,450.
• 32% for incomes over $383,900. 
• 24% for incomes over $201,050. 
• 22% for incomes over $94,300. 
• 12% for incomes over $23,200. 
• 10% for income below $23,200.

How will the Child Tax Credit change in 2024?

A much-heralded bill in Congress aims to boost the child tax credit, delivering more aid to families. Long story short: It may not happen.

The bipartisan proposal would phase in an increase to the amount of the child tax credit that is refundable, meaning that you can get the money even if you owe no tax. 

The maximum credit is $2,000 per child, and the refundable portion is currently $1,600. The legislation would increase the refundable portion to $1,800 for 2023, $1,900 for 2024 and $2,000 in 2025.But the bill has yet to pass the Senate, if indeed it ever will. “It’s on life support,” Sen. Josh Hawley, the Missouri Republican, told NBC News .

What is the tax underpayment penalty?

The IRS expects you to pay taxes on your income at regular intervals, either through withholding from your paycheck or estimated payments. 

If you don’t, you may be charged an underpayment penalty . 

The penalty could be triggered if you don’t pay enough tax or don’t pay it on time, either through withholding or estimated tax payments. In other words, don’t wait until December to send in a $10,000 check for estimated taxes.

To avoid the penalty, try to pay your estimated taxes on time. You may be able to skirt the penalty if you paid at least 90% of the tax you owe for the current year, or 100% of the tax you owed last year, whichever is less, or if you owe less than $1,000. 

The underpayment penalty is calculated based on the underpaid amount, the period in which you underpaid, and interest rates set by the IRS.

More than $1 billion in tax refunds remain unclaimed

More than $1 billion in tax refunds have yet to be claimed , and the clock is ticking.

The Internal Revenue Service recently announced that around 940,000 people still haven’t submitted tax returns for the 2020 tax year, with many awaiting refunds. They have until May 17.

"There’s money remaining on the table for hundreds of thousands of people who haven’t filed 2020 tax returns," IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a release. 

The federal tax collector urges taxpayers to act ahead of the deadline. 

Anthony Robledo

Why is my refund taking so long?

Are you wondering why your refund check hasn’t arrived ? Here’s what to do.

First, check the calendar. Most refunds are issued within 21 days of being received, the IRS says. 

Next, check with the IRS. Its  " Where's my Refund " tool can help you track your refund.

The agency is processing returns at a slightly slower pace this year than last: 88.8 million vs. 89.7 million, as of late March. 

If your refund is delayed, the IRS lists several possible reasons:

• - It was sent by mail
• - It contains errors or is incomplete
• - It needs further review
• - It is affected by identity theft or fraud
• - It was referred to the IRS by the bank due to suspicious activity
• - It includes an Injured Spouse Allocation form, which could take up to 14 weeks to process

What is a W-4 form?

According to the Internal Revenue Service, you should complete a Form W-4 so that your employer can withhold the correct federal income tax from your pay.

Accurately filling out this form can help you avoid a tax payment when you file your return.

The IRS says you should "consider completing a new Form W-4 each year and when your personal or financial situation changes."

The IRS' latest version of the W-4 form is available on its website.

Today is your last chance to contribute to an IRA for 2023

Believe it or not, there’s still time – one more day, to be precise – to contribute to your Individual Retirement Account and take the tax break for 2023.

You can contribute to an IRA up to April 15 and have the money count toward your 2023 savings. The contribution limit for 2023 is $6,500 if you’re under 50, $7,500 if you’re older. 

"There is a 15-month window to make IRA contributions for any given year," said Mary Ryan, a certified financial planner at Vanguard. 

If you haven’t maxed out your contributions, you have until the end of the day.

You'll get an answer faster if you call the IRS

The IRS answered 1 million additional calls, up roughly 17% from 2023, through April 6. And in what could be a surprising development to many, the IRS has reduced wait times on its phone lines to 3 minutes, according to the U.S. Department of Treasury's release Monday. Just two years ago, taxpayers were stuck waiting on hold an average of 28 minutes, according to Treasury.

Phone service improved as call volume rose roughly 13%. What's helped pare the wait time? The IRS has a call back option now that's available to 97% of eligible taxpayers at the start of the call, according to Treasury, if the expected wait time is longer than 15 minutes.

The IRS phone number is 800-829-1040.

Susan Tompor

What is net pay? How is it different from gross pay?

Here's what you should know about net pay: what it is, how to calculate it, and the difference between gross pay vs. net pay. 

In simple terms, gross pay  is an employee's total earned wages before payroll deductions.  Net pay is the money you take home from your paycheck after the deductions. The deductions include taxes and benefits. 

For example, if someone gets paid $1,200 per week but $160 is taken away in deductions, the person's net pay will be $1,040 per week. 

Olivia Munson

Are IRS tax refunds bigger or smaller in 2024?

As of April 5, the average refund this year totals $3,011. That's up 4.6% compared to the same time last year, when refunds averaged $2,878, the IRS reports.

A few more statistics of note:

• The average amount refunded by direct deposit is $3,088 through April 5, compared to $2,942 last year, a 4.9% increase.
• The total number of returns received by IRS so far is 101.8 million, up from 101.3 million at this time in 2023.
• The IRS has processed 100.1 million returns as of April 5, compared to 100.4 million at this time last year.
• Visits to the IRS website are up a whopping 18.2%, from about 421 million last year to 497 million this year. The agency has been working to improve customer service.

What triggers an IRS audit?

When you're audited , it means your return was singled out for closer inspection. This happens because your tax filing was among those that showed the "highest potential noncompliance," the IRS says. The agency uses data-driven algorithms, third-party information, whistleblowers and information on the forms you submit to determine if income, expenses and credits are reported accurately.

What triggers an audit? Mismatches. Make sure you enter your information from official tax forms correctly, so the numbers are consistent, said Erin Collins , National Taxpayer Advocate at the Taxpayer Advocate Service division of the IRS. The agency also looks for outliers, like a filer who writes off travel costs way above what the typical taxpayer would deduct.

The easiest way to avoid an audit is to be "accurate, honest, and modest," said Eric Scaringe, principal at certified public accounting firm UHY.

Filing an extension on Tax Day? You may need form 4868

Tax filers who aren't prepared to submit their returns on Tax Day can use  IRS Free File  to request an extension electronically. But if you prefer to mail a paper version of the extension, you'll need form 4868.

If you send the form by mail, make sure it's postmarked no later than April 15: today is the deadline for filing an extension. If you get an extension, you'll have until Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024, to file your return.

Where to send the form depends on where you live. Here is a list of addresses .

What is net pay? How it works, how to calculate it and its difference from gross pay

More: You may need Form 4868 to file a tax extension. Here's what to know as deadline looms.

What other tax deadlines fall on April 15?

Tax Day is not just the deadline to file your federal taxes for the prior year. 

If you earn income that isn't subject to withholding taxes, you're typically required to make estimated tax payments to the IRS. The agency divides the year into four quarterly payment periods, and the first quarterly payment for 2024 is due today.

Most state taxes are also due on April 15. Residents of Massachusetts and Maine have until April 17 to file federal taxes because of state holidays. There are other exceptions . 

Where’s my refund?

You've already filed your tax return for 2023. You have a refund coming. You want to know where it is .

There are multiple ways to receive a tax refund, but the fastest by far is electronically, the IRS says. If you filed electronically and chose to receive your refund by direct deposit, your refund will probably be issued within 21 days. If you mailed a paper return and expect a refund, it could take four weeks or more to process your return.

Through the IRS " Where's My Refund " tool, you can track when the IRS received your tax return, when it approved a refund, and when it issued the refund. If you chose direct deposit, the money should land in your account within five days from the date the IRS approves your refund. You can also call 800-829-1954.  

Should I file my taxes online or at the post office?

You’ve waited till the last day to file your 2023 tax return. The minutes are ticking by. Now, you face a choice: Should you file online, and try your luck with an overtaxed IRS website? Or should you print it out and head to the post office, risking long lines?

Neither choice is entirely safe. The IRS website famously crashed on Tax Day in 2018, prompting the agency to give frustrated taxpayers a rare one-day extension. 

Long lines used to be the norm at post offices on tax day. You may still face a wait if you mail your form today. The Postal Service says some locations will offer extended hours , and suggests you call your local post office to check.

The IRS recommends electronic filing. Many tax experts agree.

“Filing tax returns electronically is typically the preferred option,” said Eric Bronnenkant , director of tax at Betterment, a financial advisory company. “Even at the last minute, it is likely better than using mail.” 

Can I file my taxes for free on Tax Day?

Yes! More people are filing their taxes using Free File this year, the IRS says.

Free File allows any taxpayer with an adjusted gross income of $79,000 or less in 2023 to file taxes for free through one of eight IRS partners. To access the service, go online at IRS Free File and use the guided software.

If you're eligible, a free filing can save you a pretty penny. An individual taxpayer is estimated to spend 13 hours and $240 in out-of-pocket costs to prepare and file an annual tax return, according to the Taxpayer Advocate. 

Why is April 15 Tax Day?

April 15 might seem an arbitrary date for the entire nation to file taxes. Here's some background:

Historical sources tell us President Lincoln first levied internal taxes in 1862 , during the Civil War. The federal government adopted the modern income tax system in 1913, with the 16th Amendment. The original Tax Day fell on March 1. Congress moved the date to March 15 a few years later. In the 1950s, Tax Day was moved to April 15. The date shifts gave Americans more time to prepare their returns.

Some years, Tax Day falls later than April 15 , typically because the date falls on a weekend.

Tax Day freebies and food deals

Tax Day  has its perks. Fast food and sit-down restaurants across the U.S. are offering customers freebies and discounts to celebrate the occasion.

Whether you've already filed your taxes and are  waiting on your tax refund , or you need to  file a tax extension , you can take a break and seek out free or discounted treats. A few examples:

•   Krispy Kreme  customers can purchase an Original Glazed or assorted dozen in shop and receive a second Original Glazed dozen for the price of sales tax in their state.
• GrubHub is offering a $15 discount on delivery orders worth $25 or more.
• Potbelly shops nationwide are offering customers a free Original sandwich with the purchase of any Original or Big sized sandwich.

What happens if you don't file your taxes on time?

Not filing a tax return can trigger two potential penalties: one for failure to file, the other for failure to pay. Together, they can max out at 50% of the tax you owe.

Failure to file: If you miss the April 15 deadline, the standard penalty is 5% of any tax due for every month your return is late, up to 25% of the unpaid balance.

Failure to pay: If you file a return by the deadline but fail to pay taxes you owe, or if you get an extension and leave a balance unpaid, you typically face a much smaller monthly penalty of 0.5% of any unpaid amount, up to 25% of the unpaid tax.

James Powel and Emily DeLetter

How do I file an extension with the IRS?

Sometimes, you just need more time.

If you can’t make the April 15 deadline, experts say, the next best thing is to seek an extension . If approved, it provides filers a six-month grace period to file, though it does not provide an extension to pay. 

The deadline for filing an extension is today, April 15. If you get one, you'll have until Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024 to file your return.

Tax Day deals 2024: Score discounts, freebies at Krispy Kreme, Hooters, Potbelly, more

You can request a free extension through the IRS . You'll need basic information, like your name, address, Social Security number, and estimated tax liability. Be prepared to make a payment, if you owe anything and have the funds.

Tax filers can use IRS Free File to request an extension electronically. If you prefer to mail a paper version of the extension, called form 4868, make sure it's postmarked no later than April 15.

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Can’t Find Eclipse Glasses? Here’s What to Do.

You can watch a projection of the eclipse using some common household items.

• Share full article

By Katrina Miller

Follow our live updates on the total solar eclipse .

Reliable paper-framed glasses are by far the most popular option for safely watching the total solar eclipse on Monday. But they’ve gotten more difficult to find in some places ahead of the event.

If you’ve checked everywhere — your local planetarium, public library and even online — fear not: There is still a way to watch the eclipse safely, using items around the house. Here are a few options.

Use your hands

Palms up, position one hand over the other at a 90-degree angle. Open your fingers slightly in a waffle pattern, and allow sunlight to stream through the spaces onto the ground, or another surface. During the eclipse, you will see a projection of the moon obscuring the surface of the sun.

This method works with anything with holes, such as a straw hat, a strainer, a cheese grater or even a perforated spoon. You will also notice this effect when light from the partially eclipsed sun streams through leaves on a tree.

Set up a cardstock screen

For this option, you need a couple of white index cards or two sheets of cardstock paper. First, punch a small hole in the middle of one of the cards using a thumbtack or a pin.

Then, facing away from the sun, allow light to stream through this pinhole. Position the second card underneath to function as a screen. Adjust the spacing between the two cards to make the projection of the sun larger or smaller.

Make a box projector

If you’re up for a bit of crafting, you can make a more sophisticated pinhole projector . Start with a cardboard box — empty cereal boxes are often used, but you can use a larger box, too. You’ll also need scissors, white paper, tape, aluminum foil and a pin or thumbtack.

Cut the piece of paper to fit the inside bottom of the cardboard box to act as a screen. Use tape to hold it in place.

On the top of the box, cut two rectangular holes on either side. (The middle should be left intact — you can use tape to secure this if needed.)

Tape a piece of aluminum foil over one of the rectangular cutouts. Punch a tiny hole in the middle of the foil with the tack or pin. The other cutout will serve as a view hole.

With your back to the sun, position the foil side of the box over your shoulder, letting light stream through the pinhole. An image of the sun will project onto the screen at the bottom of the box, which you can see through the view hole. A bigger box will create a bigger image.

Enjoy the show through any of these makeshift pinholes. And remember, during totality, you can view the sun directly with your naked eye. But you should stop looking at the sun as soon as it reappears.

Katrina Miller is a science reporting fellow for The Times. She recently earned her Ph.D. in particle physics from the University of Chicago. More about Katrina Miller