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21 Legit Research Databases for Free Journal Articles in 2024

#scribendiinc

Written by  Scribendi

Has this ever happened to you? While looking for websites for research, you come across a research paper site that claims to connect academics to a peer-reviewed article database for free.

Intrigued, you search for keywords related to your topic, only to discover that you must pay a hefty subscription fee to access the service. After the umpteenth time being duped, you begin to wonder if there's even such a thing as free journal articles.

Subscription fees and paywalls are often the bane of students and academics, especially those at small institutions who don't provide access to many free article directories and repositories.

Whether you're working on an undergraduate paper, a PhD dissertation, or a medical research study, we want to help you find tools to locate and access the information you need to produce well-researched, compelling, and innovative work.

Below, we discuss why peer-reviewed articles are superior and list out the best free article databases to use in 2024.

Download Our Free Research Database Roundup PDF

Why peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles are more authoritative.

Determining what sources are reliable can be challenging. Peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles are the gold standard in academic research. Reputable academic journals have a rigorous peer-review process.

The peer review process provides accountability to the academic community, as well as to the content of the article. The peer review process involves qualified experts in a specific (often very specific) field performing a review of an article's methods and findings to determine things like quality and credibility.

Peer-reviewed articles can be found in peer-reviewed article databases and research databases, and if you know that a database of journals is reliable, that can offer reassurances about the reliability of a free article. Peer review is often double blind, meaning that the author removes all identifying information and, likewise, does not know the identity of the reviewers. This helps reviewers maintain objectivity and impartiality so as to judge an article based on its merit.

Where to Find Peer-Reviewed Articles

Peer-reviewed articles can be found in a variety of research databases. Below is a list of some of the major databases you can use to find peer-reviewed articles and other sources in disciplines spanning the humanities, sciences, and social sciences.

What Are Open Access Journals?

An open access (OA) journal is a journal whose content can be accessed without payment. This provides scholars, students, and researchers with free journal articles. OA journals use alternate methods of funding to cover publication costs so that articles can be published without having to pass those publication costs on to the reader.

Some of these funding models include standard funding methods like advertising, public funding, and author payment models, where the author pays a fee in order to publish in the journal. There are OA journals that have non-peer-reviewed academic content, as well as journals that focus on dissertations, theses, and papers from conferences, but the main focus of OA is peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles.

The internet has certainly made it easier to access research articles and other scholarly publications without needing access to a university library, and OA takes another step in that direction by removing financial barriers to academic content.

Choosing Wisely

Features of legitimate oa journals.

 There are things to look out for when trying to decide if a free publication journal is legitimate:

Mission statement —The mission statement for an OA journal should be available on their website.

Publication history —Is the journal well established? How long has it been available?

Editorial board —Who are the members of the editorial board, and what are their credentials?

Indexing —Can the journal be found in a reliable database?

Peer review —What is the peer review process? Does the journal allow enough time in the process for a reliable assessment of quality?

Impact factor —What is the average number of times the journal is cited over a two-year period?

Features of Illegitimate OA Journals

There are predatory publications that take advantage of the OA format, and they are something to be wary of. Here are some things to look out for:

Contact information —Is contact information provided? Can it be verified?

Turnaround —If the journal makes dubious claims about the amount of time from submission to publication, it is likely unreliable.

Editorial board —Much like determining legitimacy, looking at the editorial board and their credentials can help determine illegitimacy.

Indexing —Can the journal be found in any scholarly databases?

Peer review —Is there a statement about the peer review process? Does it fit what you know about peer review?

How to Find Scholarly Articles

Identify keywords.

Keywords are included in an article by the author. Keywords are an excellent way to find content relevant to your research topic or area of interest. In academic searches, much like you would on a search engine, you can use keywords to navigate through what is available to find exactly what you're looking for.

Authors provide keywords that will help you easily find their article when researching a related topic, often including general terms to accommodate broader searches, as well as some more specific terms for those with a narrower scope. Keywords can be used individually or in combination to refine your scholarly article search.

Narrow Down Results

Sometimes, search results can be overwhelming, and searching for free articles on a journal database is no exception, but there are multiple ways to narrow down your results. A good place to start is discipline.

What category does your topic fall into (psychology, architecture, machine learning, etc.)? You can also narrow down your search with a year range if you're looking for articles that are more recent.

A Boolean search can be incredibly helpful. This entails including terms like AND between two keywords in your search if you need both keywords to be in your results (or, if you are looking to exclude certain keywords, to exclude these words from the results).

Consider Different Avenues

If you're not having luck using keywords in your search for free articles, you may still be able to find what you're looking for by changing your tactics. Casting a wider net sometimes yields positive results, so it may be helpful to try searching by subject if keywords aren't getting you anywhere.

You can search for a specific publisher to see if they have OA publications in the academic journal database. And, if you know more precisely what you're looking for, you can search for the title of the article or the author's name.

Determining the Credibility of Scholarly Sources

Ensuring that sources are both credible and reliable is crucial to academic research. Use these strategies to help evaluate the usefulness of scholarly sources:

• Peer Review : Look for articles that have undergone a rigorous peer-review process. Peer-reviewed articles are typically vetted by experts in the field, ensuring the accuracy of the research findings.

Tip: To determine whether an article has undergone rigorous peer review, review the journal's editorial policies, which are often available on the journal's website. Look for information about the peer-review process, including the criteria for selecting reviewers, the process for handling conflicts of interest, and any transparency measures in place.

• Publisher Reputation : Consider the reputation of the publisher. Established publishers, such as well-known academic journals, are more likely to adhere to high editorial standards and publishing ethics.
• Author Credentials : Evaluate the credentials and expertise of the authors. Check their affiliations, academic credentials, and past publications to assess their authority in the field.
• Citations and References : Examine the citations and references provided in the article. A well-researched article will cite credible sources to support its arguments and findings. Verify the accuracy of the cited sources and ensure they are from reputable sources.
• Publication Date : Consider the publication date of the article. While older articles may still be relevant, particularly in certain fields, it is best to prioritize recent publications for up-to-date research and findings.
• Journal Impact Factor : Assess the journal's impact factor or other metrics that indicate its influence and reputation within the academic community. Higher impact factor journals are generally considered more prestigious and reliable. 

Tip: Journal Citation Reports (JCR), produced by Clarivate Analytics, is a widely used source for impact factor data. You can access JCR through academic libraries or directly from the Clarivate Analytics website if you have a subscription.

• Peer Recommendations : Seek recommendations from peers, mentors, or professors in your field. They can provide valuable insights and guidance on reputable sources and journals within your area of study.
• Cross-Verification : Cross-verify the information presented in the article with other credible sources. Compare findings, methodologies, and conclusions with similar studies to ensure consistency and reliability.

By employing these strategies, researchers can confidently evaluate the credibility and reliability of scholarly sources, ensuring the integrity of their research contributions in an ever-evolving landscape.

The Top 21 Free Online Journal and Research Databases

Navigating OA journals, research article databases, and academic websites trying to find high-quality sources for your research can really make your head spin. What constitutes a reliable database? What is a useful resource for your discipline and research topic? How can you find and access full-text, peer-reviewed articles?

Fortunately, we're here to help. Having covered some of the ins and outs of peer review, OA journals, and how to search for articles, we have compiled a list of the top 21 free online journals and the best research databases. This list of databases is a great resource to help you navigate the wide world of academic research.

These databases provide a variety of free sources, from abstracts and citations to full-text, peer-reviewed OA journals. With databases covering specific areas of research and interdisciplinary databases that provide a variety of material, these are some of our favorite free databases, and they're totally legit!

CORE is a multidisciplinary aggregator of OA research. CORE has the largest collection of OA articles available. It allows users to search more than 219 million OA articles. While most of these link to the full-text article on the original publisher's site, or to a PDF available for download, five million records are hosted directly on CORE.

CORE's mission statement is a simple and straightforward commitment to offering OA articles to anyone, anywhere in the world. They also host communities that are available for researchers to join and an ambassador community to enhance their services globally. In addition to a straightforward keyword search, CORE offers advanced search options to filter results by publication type, year, language, journal, repository, and author.

CORE's user interface is easy to use and navigate. Search results can be sorted based on relevance or recency, and you can search for relevant content directly from the results screen.

Collection : 219,537,133 OA articles

Other Services : Additional services are available from CORE, with extras that are geared toward researchers, repositories, and businesses. There are tools for accessing raw data, including an API that provides direct access to data, datasets that are available for download, and FastSync for syncing data content from the CORE database.

CORE has a recommender plug-in that suggests relevant OA content in the database while conducting a search and a discovery feature that helps you discover OA versions of paywalled articles. Other features include tools for managing content, such as a dashboard for managing repository output and the Repository Edition service to enhance discoverability.

Good Source of Peer-Reviewed Articles : Yes

Advanced Search Options : Language, author, journal, publisher, repository, DOI, year

2. ScienceOpen

Functioning as a research and publishing network, ScienceOpen offers OA to more than 74 million articles in all areas of science. Although you do need to register to view the full text of articles, registration is free. The advanced search function is highly detailed, allowing you to find exactly the research you're looking for.

The Berlin- and Boston-based company was founded in 2013 to "facilitate open and public communications between academics and to allow ideas to be judged on their merit, regardless of where they come from." Search results can be exported for easy integration with reference management systems.

You can also bookmark articles for later research. There are extensive networking options, including your Science Open profile, a forum for interacting with other researchers, the ability to track your usage and citations, and an interactive bibliography. Users have the ability to review articles and provide their knowledge and insight within the community.

Collection : 74,560,631

Other Services : None

Advanced Search Options :   Content type, source, author, journal, discipline

3. Directory of Open Access Journals

A multidisciplinary, community-curated directory, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) gives researchers access to high-quality peer-reviewed journals. It has archived more than two million articles from 17,193 journals, allowing you to either browse by subject or search by keyword.

The site was launched in 2003 with the aim of increasing the visibility of OA scholarly journals online. Content on the site covers subjects from science, to law, to fine arts, and everything in between. DOAJ has a commitment to "increase the visibility, accessibility, reputation, usage and impact of quality, peer-reviewed, OA scholarly research journals globally, regardless of discipline, geography or language."

Information about the journal is available with each search result. Abstracts are also available in a collapsible format directly from the search screen. The scholarly article website is somewhat simple, but it is easy to navigate. There are 16 principles of transparency and best practices in scholarly publishing that clearly outline DOAJ policies and standards.

Collection : 6,817,242

Advanced Search Options :   Subject, journal, year

4. Education Resources Information Center

The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) of the Institution of Education Sciences allows you to search by topic for material related to the field of education. Links lead to other sites, where you may have to purchase the information, but you can search for full-text articles only. You can also search only peer-reviewed sources.

The service primarily indexes journals, gray literature (such as technical reports, white papers, and government documents), and books. All sources of material on ERIC go through a formal review process prior to being indexed. ERIC's selection policy is available as a PDF on their website.

The ERIC website has an extensive FAQ section to address user questions. This includes categories like general questions, peer review, and ERIC content. There are also tips for advanced searches, as well as general guidance on the best way to search the database. ERIC is an excellent database for content specific to education.

Collection : 1,292,897

Advanced Search Options : Boolean

5. arXiv e-Print Archive

The arXiv e-Print Archive is run by Cornell University Library and curated by volunteer moderators, and it now offers OA to more than one million e-prints.

There are advisory committees for all eight subjects available on the database. With a stated commitment to an "emphasis on openness, collaboration, and scholarship," the arXiv e-Print Archive is an excellent STEM resource.

The interface is not as user-friendly as some of the other databases available, and the website hosts a blog to provide news and updates, but it is otherwise a straightforward math and science resource. There are simple and advanced search options, and, in addition to conducting searches for specific topics and articles, users can browse content by subject. The arXiv e-Print Archive clearly states that they do not peer review the e-prints in the database.

Collection : 1,983,891

Good Source of Peer-Reviewed Articles : No

Advanced Search Options :   Subject, date, title, author, abstract, DOI

6. Social Science Research Network

The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a collection of papers from the social sciences community. It is a highly interdisciplinary platform used to search for scholarly articles related to 67 social science topics. SSRN has a variety of research networks for the various topics available through the free scholarly database.

The site offers more than 700,000 abstracts and more than 600,000 full-text papers. There is not yet a specific option to search for only full-text articles, but, because most of the papers on the site are free access, it's not often that you encounter a paywall. There is currently no option to search for only peer-reviewed articles.

You must become a member to use the services, but registration is free and enables you to interact with other scholars around the world. SSRN is "passionately committed to increasing inclusion, diversity and equity in scholarly research," and they encourage and discuss the use of inclusive language in scholarship whenever possible.

Collection : 1,058,739 abstracts; 915,452 articles

Advanced Search Options : Term, author, date, network

7. Public Library of Science

Public Library of Science (PLOS) is a big player in the world of OA science. Publishing 12 OA journals, the nonprofit organization is committed to facilitating openness in academic research. According to the site, "all PLOS content is at the highest possible level of OA, meaning that scientific articles are immediately and freely available to anyone, anywhere."

PLOS outlines four fundamental goals that guide the organization: break boundaries, empower researchers, redefine quality, and open science. All PLOS journals are peer-reviewed, and all 12 journals uphold rigorous ethical standards for research, publication, and scientific reporting.

PLOS does not offer advanced search options. Content is organized by topic into research communities that users can browse through, in addition to options to search for both articles and journals. The PLOS website also has resources for peer reviewers, including guidance on becoming a reviewer and on how to best participate in the peer review process.

Collection : 12 journals

Advanced Search Options : None

8. OpenDOAR

OpenDOAR, or the Directory of Open Access Repositories, is a comprehensive resource for finding free OA journals and articles. Using Google Custom Search, OpenDOAR combs through OA repositories around the world and returns relevant research in all disciplines.

The repositories it searches through are assessed and categorized by OpenDOAR staff to ensure they meet quality standards. Inclusion criteria for the database include requirements for OA content, global access, and categorically appropriate content, in addition to various other quality assurance measures. OpenDOAR has metadata, data, content, preservation, and submission policies for repositories, in addition to two OA policy statements regarding minimum and optimum recommendations.

This database allows users to browse and search repositories, which can then be selected, and articles and data can be accessed from the repository directly. As a repository database, much of the content on the site is geared toward the support of repositories and OA standards.

Collection : 5,768 repositories

Other Services : OpenDOAR offers a variety of additional services. Given the nature of the platform, services are primarily aimed at repositories and institutions, and there is a marked focus on OA in general. Sherpa services are OA archiving tools for authors and institutions.

They also offer various resources for OA support and compliance regarding standards and policies. The publication router matches publications and publishers with appropriate repositories.

There are also services and resources from JISC for repositories for cost management, discoverability, research impact, and interoperability, including ORCID consortium membership information. Additionally, a repository self-assessment tool is available for members.

Advanced Search Options :   Name, organization name, repository type, software name, content type, subject, country, region

9. Bielefeld Academic Search Engine

The Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) is operated by the Bielefeld University Library in Germany, and it offers more than 240 million documents from more than 8,000 sources. Sixty percent of its content is OA, and you can filter your search accordingly.

BASE has rigorous inclusion requirements for content providers regarding quality and relevance, and they maintain a list of content providers for the sake of transparency, which can be easily found on their website. BASE has a fairly elegant interface. Search results can be organized by author, title, or date.

From the search results, items can be selected and exported, added to favorites, emailed, and searched in Google Scholar. There are basic and advanced search features, with the advanced search offering numerous options for refining search criteria. There is also a feature on the website that saves recent searches without additional steps from the user.

Collection : 276,019,066 documents; 9,286 content providers

Advanced Search Options :   Author, subject, year, content provider, language, document type, access, terms of reuse

10. Digital Library of the Commons Repository

Run by Indiana University, the Digital Library of the Commons (DLC) Repository is a multidisciplinary journal repository that allows users to access thousands of free and OA articles from around the world. You can browse by document type, date, author, title, and more or search for keywords relevant to your topic.

DCL also offers the Comprehensive Bibliography of the Commons, an image database, and a keyword thesaurus for enhanced search parameters. The repository includes books, book chapters, conference papers, journal articles, surveys, theses and dissertations, and working papers. DCL advanced search features drop-down menus of search types with built-in Boolean search options.

Searches can be sorted by relevance, title, date, or submission date in ascending or descending order. Abstracts are included in selected search results, with access to full texts available, and citations can be exported from the same page. Additionally, the image database search includes tips for better search results.

Collection : 10,784

Advanced Search Options :   Author, date, title, subject, sector, region, conference

11. CIA World Factbook

The CIA World Factbook is a little different from the other resources on this list in that it is not an online journal directory or repository. It is, however, a useful free online research database for academics in a variety of disciplines.

All the information is free to access, and it provides facts about every country in the world, which are organized by category and include information about history, geography, transportation, and much more. The World Factbook can be searched by country or region, and there is also information about the world's oceans.

This site contains resources related to the CIA as an organization rather than being a scientific journal database specifically. The site has a user interface that is easy to navigate. The site also provides a section for updates regarding changes to what information is available and how it is organized, making it easier to interact with the information you are searching for.

Collection : 266 countries

12. Paperity

Paperity boasts its status as the "first multidisciplinary aggregator of OA journals and papers." Their focus is on helping you avoid paywalls while connecting you to authoritative research. In addition to providing readers with easy access to thousands of journals, Paperity seeks to help authors reach their audiences and help journals increase their exposure to boost readership.

Paperity has journal articles for every discipline, and the database offers more than a dozen advanced search options, including the length of the paper and the number of authors. There is even an option to include, exclude, or exclusively search gray papers.

Paperity is available for mobile, with both a mobile site and the Paperity Reader, an app that is available for both Android and Apple users. The database is also available on social media. You can interact with Paperity via Twitter and Facebook, and links to their social media are available on their homepage, including their Twitter feed.

Collection : 8,837,396

Advanced Search Options : Title, abstract, journal title, journal ISSN, publisher, year of publication, number of characters, number of authors, DOI, author, affiliation, language, country, region, continent, gray papers

13. dblp Computer Science Bibliography

The dblp Computer Science Bibliography is an online index of major computer science publications. dblp was founded in 1993, though until 2010 it was a university-specific database at the University of Trier in Germany. It is currently maintained by the Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz Center for Informatics.

Although it provides access to both OA articles and those behind a paywall, you can limit your search to only OA articles. The site indexes more than three million publications, making it an invaluable resource in the world of computer science. dblp entries are color-coded based on the type of item.

dblp has an extensive FAQ section, so questions that might arise about topics like the database itself, navigating the website, or the data on dblp, in addition to several other topics, are likely to be answered. The website also hosts a blog and has a section devoted to website statistics.

Collection : 5,884,702

14. EconBiz

EconBiz is a great resource for economic and business studies. A service of the Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, it offers access to full texts online, with the option of searching for OA material only. Their literature search is performed across multiple international databases.

EconBiz has an incredibly useful research skills section, with resources such as Guided Walk, a service to help students and researchers navigate searches, evaluate sources, and correctly cite references; the Research Guide EconDesk, a help desk to answer specific questions and provide advice to aid in literature searches; and the Academic Career Kit for what they refer to as Early Career Researchers.

Other helpful resources include personal literature lists, a calendar of events for relevant calls for papers, conferences, and workshops, and an economics terminology thesaurus to help in finding keywords for searches. To stay up-to-date with EconBiz, you can sign up for their newsletter.

Collection : 1,075,219

Advanced Search Options :   Title, subject, author, institution, ISBN/ISSN, journal, publisher, language, OA only

15. BioMed Central

BioMed Central provides OA research from more than 300 peer-reviewed journals. While originally focused on resources related to the physical sciences, math, and engineering, BioMed Central has branched out to include journals that cover a broader range of disciplines, with the aim of providing a single platform that provides OA articles for a variety of research needs. You can browse these journals by subject or title, or you can search all articles for your required keyword.

BioMed Central has a commitment to peer-reviewed sources and to the peer review process itself, continually seeking to help and improve the peer review process. They're "committed to maintaining high standards through full and stringent peer review."

Additionally, the website includes resources to assist and support editors as part of their commitment to providing high-quality, peer-reviewed OA articles.

Collection : 507,212

Other Services : BMC administers the International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number (ISRCTN) registry. While initially designed for registering clinical trials, since its creation in 2000, the registry has broadened its scope to include other health studies as well.

The registry is recognized by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, as well as the World Health Organization (WHO), and it meets the requirements established by the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform.

The study records included in the registry are all searchable and free to access. The ISRCTN registry "supports transparency in clinical research, helps reduce selective reporting of results and ensures an unbiased and complete evidence base."

Advanced Search Options :   Author, title, journal, list

A multidisciplinary search engine, JURN provides links to various scholarly websites, articles, and journals that are free to access or OA. Covering the fields of the arts, humanities, business, law, nature, science, and medicine, JURN has indexed almost 5,000 repositories to help you find exactly what you're looking for.

Search features are enhanced by Google, but searches are filtered through their index of repositories. JURN seeks to reach a wide audience, with their search engine tailored to researchers from "university lecturers and students seeking a strong search tool for OA content" and "advanced and ambitious students, age 14-18" to "amateur historians and biographers" and "unemployed and retired lecturers."

That being said, JURN is very upfront about its limitations. They admit to not being a good resource for educational studies, social studies, or psychology, and conference archives are generally not included due to frequently unstable URLs.

Collection : 5,064 indexed journals

Other Services : JURN has a browser add-on called UserScript. This add-on allows users to integrate the JURN database directly into Google Search. When performing a search through Google, the add-on creates a link that sends the search directly to JURN CSE. JURN CSE is a search service that is hosted by Google.

Clicking the link from the Google Search bar will run your search through the JURN database from the Google homepage. There is also an interface for a DuckDuckGo search box; while this search engine has an emphasis on user privacy, for smaller sites that may be indexed by JURN, DuckDuckGo may not provide the same depth of results.

Advanced Search Options :   Google search modifiers

Dryad is a digital repository of curated, OA scientific research data. Launched in 2009, it is run by a not-for-profit membership organization, with a community of institutional and publisher members for whom their services have been designed. Members include institutions such as Stanford, UCLA, and Yale, as well as publishers like Oxford University Press and Wiley.

Dryad aims to "promote a world where research data is openly available, integrated with the scholarly literature, and routinely reused to create knowledge." It is free to access for the search and discovery of data. Their user experience is geared toward easy self-depositing, supports Creative Commons licensing, and provides DOIs for all their content.

Note that there is a publishing charge associated if you wish to publish your data in Dryad.  When searching datasets, they are accompanied by author information and abstracts for the associated studies, and citation information is provided for easy attribution.

Collection : 44,458

Advanced Search Options : No

Run by the British Library, the E-Theses Online Service (EThOS) allows you to search over 500,000 doctoral theses in a variety of disciplines. All of the doctoral theses available on EThOS have been awarded by higher education institutions in the United Kingdom.

Although some full texts are behind paywalls, you can limit your search to items available for immediate download, either directly through EThOS or through an institution's website. More than half of the records in the database provide access to full-text theses.

EThOS notes that they do not hold all records for all institutions, but they strive to index as many doctoral theses as possible, and the database is constantly expanding, with approximately 3,000 new records added and 2,000 new full-text theses available every month. The availability of full-text theses is dependent on multiple factors, including their availability in the institutional repository and the level of repository development.

Collection : 500,000+

Advanced Search Options : Abstract, author's first name, author's last name, awarding body, current institution, EThOS ID, year, language, qualifications, research supervisor, sponsor/funder, keyword, title

PubMed is a research platform well-known in the fields of science and medicine. It was created and developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine (NLM). It has been available since 1996 and offers access to "more than 33 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books."

While PubMed does not provide full-text articles directly, and many full-text articles may be behind paywalls or require subscriptions to access them, when articles are available from free sources, such as through PubMed Central (PMC), those links are provided with the citations and abstracts that PubMed does provide.

PMC, which was established in 2000 by the NLM, is a free full-text archive that includes more than 6,000,000 records. PubMed records link directly to corresponding PMC results. PMC content is provided by publishers and other content owners, digitization projects, and authors directly.

Collection : 33,000,000+

Advanced Search Options : Author's first name, author's last name, identifier, corporation, date completed, date created, date entered, date modified, date published, MeSH, book, conflict of interest statement, EC/RN number, editor, filter, grant number, page number, pharmacological action, volume, publication type, publisher, secondary source ID, text, title, abstract, transliterated title

20. Semantic Scholar

A unique and easy-to-use resource, Semantic Scholar defines itself not just as a research database but also as a "search and discovery tool." Semantic Scholar harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to efficiently sort through millions of science-related papers based on your search terms.

Through this singular application of machine learning, Semantic Scholar expands search results to include topic overviews based on your search terms, with the option to create an alert for or further explore the topic. It also provides links to related topics.

In addition, search results produce "TLDR" summaries in order to provide concise overviews of articles and enhance your research by helping you to navigate quickly and easily through the available literature to find the most relevant information. According to the site, although some articles are behind paywalls, "the data [they] have for those articles is limited," so you can expect to receive mostly full-text results.

Collection : 203,379,033

Other Services : Semantic Scholar supports multiple popular browsers. Content can be accessed through both mobile and desktop versions of Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Opera.

Additionally, Semantic Scholar provides browser extensions for both Chrome and Firefox, so AI-powered scholarly search results are never more than a click away. The mobile interface includes an option for Semantic Swipe, a new way of interacting with your research results.

There are also beta features that can be accessed as part of the Beta Program, which will provide you with features that are being actively developed and require user feedback for further improvement.

Advanced Search Options : Field of study, date range, publication type, author, journal, conference, PDF

Zenodo, powered by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), was launched in 2013. Taking its name from Zenodotus, the first librarian of the ancient library of Alexandria, Zenodo is a tool "built and developed by researchers, to ensure that everyone can join in open science." Zenodo accepts all research from every discipline in any file format.

However, Zenodo also curates uploads and promotes peer-reviewed material that is available through OA. A DOI is assigned to everything that is uploaded to Zenodo, making research easily findable and citable. You can sort by keyword, title, journal, and more and download OA documents directly from the site.

While there are closed access and restricted access items in the database, the vast majority of research is OA material. Search results can be filtered by access type, making it easy to view the free articles available in the database.

Collection : 2,220,000+

Advanced Search Options : Access, file type, keywords

Check out our roundup of free research databases as a handy one-page PDF.

How to find peer-reviewed articles.

There are a lot of free scholarly articles available from various sources. The internet is a big place. So how do you go about finding peer-reviewed articles when conducting your research? It's important to make sure you are using reputable sources.

The first source of the article is the person or people who wrote it. Checking out the author can give you some initial insight into how much you can trust what you’re reading. Looking into the publication information of your sources can also indicate whether the article is reliable.

Aspects of the article, such as subject and audience, tone, and format, are other things you can look at when evaluating whether the article you're using is valid, reputable, peer-reviewed material. So, let's break that down into various components so you can assess your research to ensure that you're using quality articles and conducting solid research.

Check the Author

Peer-reviewed articles are written by experts or scholars with experience in the field or discipline they're writing about. The research in a peer-reviewed article has to pass a rigorous evaluation process, so it's a foregone conclusion that the author(s) of a peer-reviewed article should have experience or training related to that research.

When evaluating an article, take a look at the author's information. What credentials does the author have to indicate that their research has scholarly weight behind it? Finding out what type of degree the author has—and what that degree is in—can provide insight into what kind of authority the author is on the subject.

Something else that might lend credence to the author's scholarly role is their professional affiliation. A look at what organization or institution they are affiliated with can tell you a lot about their experience or expertise. Where were they trained, and who is verifying their research?

Identify Subject and Audience

The ultimate goal of a study is to answer a question. Scholarly articles are also written for scholarly audiences, especially articles that have gone through the peer review process. This means that the author is trying to reach experts, researchers, academics, and students in the field or topic the research is based on.

Think about the question the author is trying to answer by conducting this research, why, and for whom. What is the subject of the article? What question has it set out to answer? What is the purpose of finding the information? Is the purpose of the article of importance to other scholars? Is it original content?

Research should also be approached analytically. Is the methodology sound? Is the author using an analytical approach to evaluate the data that they have obtained? Are the conclusions they've reached substantiated by their data and analysis? Answering these questions can reveal a lot about the article's validity.

Format Matters

Reliable articles from peer-reviewed sources have certain format elements to be aware of. The first is an abstract. An abstract is a short summary or overview of the article. Does the article have an abstract? It's unlikely that you're reading a peer-reviewed article if it doesn't. Peer-reviewed journals will also have a word count range. If an article seems far too short or incredibly long, that may be reason to doubt it.

Another feature of reliable articles is the sections the information is divided into. Peer-reviewed research articles will have clear, concise sections that appropriately organize the information. This might include a literature review, methodology, results (in the case of research articles), and a conclusion.

One of the most important sections is the references or bibliography. This is where the researcher lists all the sources of their information. A peer-reviewed source will have a comprehensive reference section.

An article that has been written to reach an academic community will have an academic tone. The language that is used, and the way this language is used, is important to consider. If the article is riddled with grammatical errors, confusing syntax, and casual language, it almost definitely didn't make it through the peer review process.

Also consider the use of terminology. Every discipline is going to have standard terminology or jargon that can be used and understood by other academics in the discipline. The language in a peer-reviewed article is going to reflect that.

If the author is going out of their way to explain simple terms, or terms that are standard to the field or discipline, it's unlikely that the article has been peer reviewed, as this is something that the author would be asked to address during the review process.

Publication

The source of the article will be a very good indicator of the likelihood that it was peer reviewed. Where was the article published? Was it published alongside other academic articles in the same discipline? Is it a legitimate and reputable scholarly publication?

A trade publication or newspaper might be legitimate or reputable, but it is not a scholarly source, and it will not have been subject to the peer review process. Scholarly journals are the best resource for peer-reviewed articles, but it's important to remember that not all scholarly journals are peer reviewed.

It's helpful to look at a scholarly source's website, as peer-reviewed journals will have a clear indication of the peer review process. University libraries, institutional repositories, and reliable databases (and now you have a list of legit ones) can also help provide insight into whether an article comes from a peer-reviewed journal.

Common Research Mistakes to Avoid

Research is a lot of work. Even with high standards and good intentions, it's easy to make mistakes. Perhaps you searched for access to scientific journals for free and found the perfect peer-reviewed sources, but you forgot to document everything, and your references are a mess. Or, you only searched for free online articles and missed out on a ground-breaking study that was behind a paywall.

Whether your research is for a degree or to get published or to satisfy your own inquisitive nature, or all of the above, you want all that work to produce quality results. You want your research to be thorough and accurate.

To have any hope of contributing to the literature on your research topic, your results need to be high quality. You might not be able to avoid every potential mistake, but here are some that are both common and easy to avoid.

Sticking to One Source

One of the hallmarks of good research is a healthy reference section. Using a variety of sources gives you a better answer to your question. Even if all of the literature is in agreement, looking at various aspects of the topic may provide you with an entirely different picture than you would have if you looked at your research question from only one angle.

Not Documenting Every Fact

As you conduct your research, do yourself a favor and write everything down. Everything you include in your paper or article that you got from another source is going to need to be added to your references and cited.

It's important, especially if your aim is to conduct ethical, high-quality research, that all of your research has proper attribution. If you don't document as you go, you could end up making a lot of work for yourself if the information you don't write down is something that later, as you write your paper, you really need.

Using Outdated Materials

Academia is an ever-changing landscape. What was true in your academic discipline or area of research ten years ago may have since been disproven. If fifteen studies have come out since the article that you're using was published, it's more than a little likely that you're going to be basing your research on flawed or dated information.

If the information you're basing your research on isn't as up-to-date as possible, your research won't be of quality or able to stand up to any amount of scrutiny. You don't want all of your hard work to be for naught.

Relying Solely on Open Access Journals

OA is a great resource for conducting academic research. There are high-quality journal articles available through OA, and that can be very helpful for your research. But, just because you have access to free articles, that doesn't mean that there's nothing to be found behind a paywall.

Just as dismissing high-quality peer-reviewed articles because they are OA would be limiting, not exploring any paid content at all is equally short-sighted. If you're seeking to conduct thorough and comprehensive research, exploring all of your options for quality sources is going to be to your benefit.

Digging Too Deep or Not Deep Enough

Research is an art form, and it involves a delicate balance of information. If you conduct your research using only broad search terms, you won't be able to answer your research question well, or you'll find that your research provides information that is closely related to your topic but, ultimately, your findings are vague and unsubstantiated.

On the other hand, if you delve deeply into your research topic with specific searches and turn up too many sources, you might have a lot of information that is adjacent to your topic but without focus and perhaps not entirely relevant. It's important to answer your research question concisely but thoroughly.

Different Types of Scholarly Articles

Different types of scholarly articles have different purposes. An original research article, also called an empirical article, is the product of a study or an experiment. This type of article seeks to answer a question or fill a gap in the existing literature.

Research articles will have a methodology, results, and a discussion of the findings of the experiment or research and typically a conclusion.

Review articles overview the current literature and research and provide a summary of what the existing research indicates or has concluded. This type of study will have a section for the literature review, as well as a discussion of the findings of that review. Review articles will have a particularly extensive reference or bibliography section.

Theoretical articles draw on existing literature to create new theories or conclusions, or look at current theories from a different perspective, to contribute to the foundational knowledge of the field of study.

10 Tips for Navigating Journal Databases

Use the right academic journal database for your search, be that interdisciplinary or specific to your field. Or both!

If it's an option, set the search results to return only peer-reviewed sources.

Start by using search terms that are relevant to your topic without being overly specific.

Try synonyms, especially if your keywords aren't returning the desired results.

Even if you've found some good articles, try searching using different terms.

Explore the advanced search features of the database(s).

Learn to use Booleans (AND, OR, NOT) to expand or narrow your results.

Once you've gotten some good results from a more general search, try narrowing your search.

Read through abstracts when trying to find articles relevant to your research.

Keep track of your research and use citation tools. It'll make life easier when it comes time to compile your references.

7 Frequently Asked Questions

1. how do i get articles for free.

Free articles can be found through free online academic journals, OA databases, or other databases that include OA journals and articles. These resources allow you to access free papers online so you can conduct your research without getting stuck behind a paywall.

Academics don't receive payment for the articles they contribute to journals. There are often, in fact, publication fees that scholars pay in order to publish. This is one of the funding structures that allows OA journals to provide free content so that you don't have to pay fees or subscription costs to access journal articles.

2. How Do I Find Journal Articles?

Journal articles can be found in databases and institutional repositories that can be accessed at university libraries. However, online research databases that contain OA articles are the best resource for getting free access to journal articles that are available online.

Peer-reviewed journal articles are the best to use for academic research, and there are a number of databases where you can find peer-reviewed OA journal articles. Once you've found a useful article, you can look through the references for the articles the author used to conduct their research, and you can then search online databases for those articles, too.

3. How Do I Find Peer-Reviewed Articles?

Peer-reviewed articles can be found in reputable scholarly peer-reviewed journals. High-quality journals and journal articles can be found online using academic search engines and free research databases. These resources are excellent for finding OA articles, including peer-reviewed articles.

OA articles are articles that can be accessed for free. While some scholarly search engines and databases include articles that aren't peer reviewed, there are also some that provide only peer-reviewed articles, and databases that include non-peer-reviewed articles often have advanced search features that enable you to select "peer review only." The database will return results that are exclusively peer-reviewed content.

4. What Are Research Databases?

A research database is a list of journals, articles, datasets, and/or abstracts that allows you to easily search for scholarly and academic resources and conduct research online. There are databases that are interdisciplinary and cover a variety of topics.

For example, Paperity might be a great resource for a chemist as well as a linguist, and there are databases that are more specific to a certain field. So, while ERIC might be one of the best educational databases available for OA content, it's not going to be one of the best databases for finding research in the field of microbiology.

5. How Do I Find Scholarly Articles for Specific Fields?

There are interdisciplinary research databases that provide articles in a variety of fields, as well as research databases that provide articles that cater to specific disciplines. Additionally, a journal repository or index can be a helpful resource for finding articles in a specific field.

When searching an interdisciplinary database, there are frequently advanced search features that allow you to narrow the search results down so that they are specific to your field. Selecting "psychology" in the advanced search features will return psychology journal articles in your search results. You can also try databases that are specific to your field.

If you're searching for law journal articles, many law reviews are OA. If you don't know of any databases specific to history, visiting a journal repository or index and searching "history academic journals" can return a list of journals specific to history and provide you with a place to begin your research.

6. Are Peer-Reviewed Articles Really More Legitimate?

The short answer is yes, peer-reviewed articles are more legitimate resources for academic research. The peer review process provides legitimacy, as it is a rigorous review of the content of an article that is performed by scholars and academics who are experts in their field of study. The review provides an evaluation of the quality and credibility of the article.

Non-peer-reviewed articles are not subject to a review process and do not undergo the same level of scrutiny. This means that non-peer-reviewed articles are unlikely, or at least not as likely, to meet the same standards that peer-reviewed articles do.

7. Are Free Article Directories Legitimate?

Yes! As with anything, some databases are going to be better for certain requirements than others. But, a scholarly article database being free is not a reason in itself to question its legitimacy.

Free scholarly article databases can provide access to abstracts, scholarly article websites, journal repositories, and high-quality peer-reviewed journal articles. The internet has a lot of information, and it's often challenging to figure out what information is reliable. 

Research databases and article directories are great resources to help you conduct your research. Our list of the best research paper websites is sure to provide you with sources that are totally legit.

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Open Access

Open Access is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment. Open Access ensures that anyone can access and use these results—to turn ideas into industries and breakthroughs into better lives.

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Research provides the foundation of modern society. Research leads to breakthroughs, and communicating the results of research is what allows us to turn breakthroughs into better lives—to provide new treatments for disease, to implement solutions for challenges like global warming, and to build entire industries around what were once just ideas.

However, our current system for communicating research is crippled by a centuries old model that hasn’t been updated to take advantage of 21st century technology:

• Governments provide most of the funding for research—hundreds of billions of dollars annually—and public institutions employ a large portion of all researchers.
• Researchers publish their findings without the expectation of compensation. Unlike other authors, they hand their work over to publishers without payment, in the interest of advancing human knowledge.
• Through the process of peer review, researchers review each other’s work for free.
• Once published, those that contributed to the research (from taxpayers to the institutions that supported the research itself) have to pay again to access the findings. Though research is produced as a public good, it isn’t available to the public who paid for it.

Our current system for communicating research uses a print-based model in the digital age. Even though research is largely produced with public dollars by researchers who share it freely, the results are hidden behind technical, legal, and financial barriers. These artificial barriers are maintained by legacy publishers and restrict access to a small fraction of users, locking out most of the world’s population and preventing the use of new research techniques.

This fundamental mismatch between what is possible with digital technology—an open system for communicating research results in which anyone, anywhere can contribute—and our outdated publishing system has led to the call for Open Access.

Open Access is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles combined with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment. Open Access is the needed modern update for the communication of research that fully utilizes the Internet for what it was originally built to do—accelerate research.

Funders invest in research to advance human knowledge and ultimately improve lives. Open Access increases the return on that investment by ensuring the results of the research they fund can be read and built on by anyone.

Breakthroughs often come from unexpected places ; the Theory of Relativity was developed by a patent clerk. Open Access expands the number of potential contributors to research from just those at institutions wealthy enough to afford journal subscriptions to anyone with an internet connection.

Researchers benefit from having the widest possible audience. Researchers provide their articles to publishers for free, because their compensation comes in the form of recognition for their findings. Open Access means more readers, more potential collaborators, more citations for their work, and ultimately more recognition.

The research enterprise itself benefits when the latest techniques can be easily used. For years, we have had powerful text and data mining tools that can analyze the entire research literature, uncovering trends and connections that no human reader could. While publishers’ technical and legal barriers currently prevent their widespread use, Open Access empowers anyone to use these tools, which hold the potential of revolutionizing how research is conducted.

Even the best ideas remain just that until they are shared, until they can be utilized by others. The more people that can access and build upon the latest research, the more valuable that research becomes and the more likely we are to benefit as a society. More eyes make for smaller problems.

• Learn about SPARC’s policy priorities
• Download SPARC's OA policy one-pager

Open Access Impact Stories

The impact of embracing community over commercialization.

To catalyze discussion around the 2023 International Open Access Week theme of “Community over...

Zenodo’s Open Repository Streamlines Sharing Science

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2021 update to the sparc landscape analysis & roadmap for action, sparc resources related to covid-19, data analysis for negotiation, latest news, all tdm & ai rights reserved fair use & evolving publisher copyright statements, theme for open access week 2024 continues call to put “community over commercialization”, open access as a means to equity: progress, challenges, and the continued role for the boai, upcoming events, oct 21:  open access week 2024, learn more about our work.

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The library offers many tools to quickly check if you have free online access. Each tool has features that you may find helpful at different times. Most people mix and match for different purposes. Find the one that's right for you.

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“Free Full Text Articles”: Where to Search for Them?

Ashish singh.

Consultant Dermatologist, Parkinsganj, Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

Manish Singh

1 Department of Neurosurgery, JIPMER, Pondicherry, India

Ajai Kumar Singh

2 Department of Neurology, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences, Vibhooti Khand, Gomti Nagar, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

Deepti Singh

3 Consultant Psychiatrist, Parkinsganj, Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

Pratibha Singh

4 Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, JIPMER, Pondicherry, India

Abhishek Sharma

5 Department of Surgical Oncology, Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre, Delhi, India

References form the backbone of any medical literature. Presently, because of high inflation, it is very difficult for any library/organization/college to purchase all journals. The condition is even worse for an individual person, such as private practitioners. The solution lies in the free availability of full-text articles. Here, the authors share their experiences about the accessibility of free full-text articles.

INTRODUCTION

Presently, in India nearly 314 medical colleges are providing undergraduate medical education in the form of MBBS, 163 colleges are providing doctor of medicine in diploma in Dermatology,Venereology and Leprosy (DVL), and 84 colleges are providing diploma in DVL.[ 1 – 3 ] In addition to this, 27 hospitals are providing diplomate of national board in diploma in Venereology and Dermatology.[ 4 ] On comparing this data with number of research articles published, the latter stands in a mediocre situation. One of the important cause responsible for the relatively less number of research publication is unavailability of free full-text articles. Research works, published by most of the journals, are paid. Many of the undergraduates or postgraduate students may not be able to purchase these high-cost journals or articles. In addition to this, many researchers may not be willing to spend money on journals. These are some of the situations where free full-text articles come for rescue, but many of the beginners may not be familiar about how to search these articles. In addition, free full-text articles are the first choice for many of the postgraduate students for their dissertation.

HOW TO APPROACH

In addition to journals which are fully Open Access, there are few other journals which operate through subscriptions as mainstream journals do, but which offer open access to the electronic versions of their articles after a delay of usually a year, or selectively for individual articles, provided the authors have paid an additional charge to “open up” the articles.[ 5 ]

Free full-text articles can be approached in the following ways.

Medknow Publications

Medknow Publications publish nearly 150 journals. They provide free access to the electronic editions of their journals.[ 6 ] Researchers just have to open the site www.medknow.com , fill the key word they require, and search. Alternatively, they can visit the search option, available in most of their journals site through www.journalonweb.com , fill the key word, and search across multiple journals. At times, this site alone provides sufficient number of references required for the purpose. The important dermatological journals published by Medknow Publications are Indian Dermatology Online Journal, Indian Journal of Dermatology, Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology, and Leprology, Indian Journal of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and AIDS, International Journal of Trichology, and Journal of Cutaneous and Aesthetic Surgery.[ 7 ]

PubMed Central and PubMed

PubMed Central is the United States National Library of Medicine's digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature which provides free access to the full text of articles.[ 8 ] To search for free full-text articles on PubMed Central, one has to visit the site http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ , write the topic/author/journal title, and search across all articles.

PubMed is a database of citations and abstracts for articles from thousands of journals. PubMed does not include full-text journal articles.[ 9 ] It includes links to full-text articles at many journal web sites as well as to most of the articles in PubMed Central.[ 10 ] Here, articles can be searched on the site http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed . Search can be restricted to contents free on web by using filter your results and clicking free full text.[ 11 ]

Directory of Open Access Journals

The directory aims to cover all open access scientific and scholarly journals that use a quality control system to guarantee the content.[ 12 ] It provides articles from 439 medicinal journals. Among them, 21 are from dermatology.[ 13 ] It includes Anais Brasileiros de Dermatologia, BMC Dermatology, Case Reports in Dermatology, Clinical Dermatology, Clinical Medicine Insights: Dermatology, Clinical, Cosmetic and Investigational Dermatology, Dermatología Peruana, Dermatology Online Journal,th Dermatology Reports, Dermatology Research and Practice, Egyptian Dermatology Online Journal, Indian Journal of Dermatology, Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology, The Internet Journal of Dermatology, Journal of Clinical and Experimental Dermatology Research, Journal of the Egyptian Women's Dermatologic Society, Open Dermatology Journal, Revista Argentina de Dermatología, Surgical and Cosmetic Dermatology, Turk Dermatoloji Dergisi, Turkderm.[ 14 ] The disadvantage of directory of open access journals is that few of these journals are in languages other than English. Here, articles can be searched on the site http://www.doaj.org .

Electronic Resources in Medicine Consortium and National Medical Library

Electronic Resources in Medicine Consortium (ERMED) and National Medical Library (NML) are an excellent platform for obtaining free of cost recent journal articles for its member colleges. There is no membership fees charged from the Government Medical Colleges and institutions. The private colleges and institutions have to make payment per site price for e-sources purchased by the consortium in every calendar year.[ 15 ] Membership of the college can be checked from the site http://www.nmlermed.in/members.htm or volunteers can contact their library to check the membership and to get the user name and password of the site www.ermed.jccc.in allotted to their college.[ 16 ] In 2009, the number of ERMED members increased from 40 to 72 Government Medical Colleges/Institutes across the country.[ 17 ] At present, it covers nearly 32 journals of dermatology. It includes Acta Dermatoveneorologica Alpina, Pannonica et Adriatica, Acta Dermatovenerologica Croatica, Advances in Skin and Wound Care, American Journal of Clinical Dermatology, American Journal of Dermatopathology, Archives of Dermatological Research, Archives of Dermatology,, Asian Journal of Dermatology, BMC Dermatology, Clinical, Cosmetic and Investigational Dermatology, Clinical Dermatology, Contact Dermatitis, Dermatologic Surgery, Dermatology, Dermatology Nursing, Dermatology Online Journal, Dermatology Times, Indian Journal of Dermatology, Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology, International Journal of Dermatology, Internet Journal of Dermatology, Journal of Drugs in Dermatology, Journal of Investigative Dermatology, Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology, Medicine, Open Dermatology Journal, Pediatric Dermatology, Rosacea Review, Skin and Allergy News, Skin Pharmacology and Physiology, Turkdem-Archives of the Turkish Dermatology and Venerology and Turkish Journal of Dermatology.[ 18 ]

Journal articles related to the topic can be searched easily after signing in at the site www.ermed.jccc.in , followed by clicking search database.

Google, Google Scholar, and Yahoo

Google ( http://www.google.com ) and Yahoo search ( http://www.search.yahoo.com ) are two of the world's most hit web pages and two largest web-based search engines.[ 19 ] Usually these are the first search site for any scholar. They provide links for both paid and free articles. The disadvantage associated with these sites is that additionally they provide materials that may not give scholarly information. Many articles are repeated also. But the catch is that one article which is paid at one web link may be free at another web link. Google Scholar ( http://www.scholar.google.com ) provides a simple way to broadly search for the relevant scholarly literature and research.[ 19 ]

The Cochrane Library

The Cochrane Library provides high-quality review articles. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews has an impact factor of 5.653 of 2009.[ 20 ] Articles can be searched on the site http://www.thecochranelibrary.com/view/0/index.html .

Public Library of Science

Public library of science is a nonprofit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource.[ 21 ] Everything published on this site is freely available throughout the world, for researchers to read, download, copy, distribute, and use.[ 22 ] Articles can be searched here on the site http://www.plos.org/search.php .

Free Medical Journals

Currently, total 2226 journals are available on this site.[ 23 ] Among them, nearly 30 are journals are related to dermatology and venereology and most of them are in English.[ 24 ] Some journals are available only a few months after the release. Journals can be searched on the site http://www.freemedicaljournals.com/fmj/DERMA.HTM .

It covers more than 125 medical journals and textbooks. After a simple, free registration, Medscape automatically delivers you the specialty site that best fits your profile.[ 25 ] After signing in at www.medscape.com , articles can be searched.

HighWire Press Stanford University

HighWire Press partners with independent scholarly publishers, societies, associations, and university presses to facilitate the digital dissemination of 1465 journals, reference works, books, and proceedings.[ 26 ] Articles can be searched on the site http://highwire.stanford.edu/ . It provides both free and paid articles.

Bioline International

Bioline International provides open access to peer reviewed bioscience journals published in developing countries.[ 27 ] Articles can be searched on the site http://www.bioline.org.br .

Indmed covers about 77 journals indexed from 1985 onwards. A portal medIND provides free full text access to 40 Indian medical journals.[ 28 ] Articles can be searched on the site http://medind.nic.in .

BioMed Central

BioMed Central is a Science, Technology, and Medicine publisher. All original research articles published by BioMed Central are made free and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication.[ 29 ] After free registration, journals can be searched over http://www.biomedcentral.com/browse/journals/ .

Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research

Important dermatology journals in English included in this site are Acta Dermato-Venereologica, Acta Dermatovenerologica Alpina, Pannonica et Adriatica, Annals of Dermatology, Archives of Dermatology, Asian Journal of Dermatology, BMC Dermatology, Case Reports in Dermatology, Clinical Medicine Insights: Dermatology, Clinical, Cosmetic and Investigational Dermatology, Dermato-Endocrinology, Dermatology Online Journal, Dermatology Reports, Dermatology Research and Practice, Dermatology Times, European Journal of Dermatology, Indian Journal of Dermatology, Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology, International Journal of Trichology, Internet Journal of Dermatology, Journal of Clinical and Experimental Dermatology Research, Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology, Journal of Clinical, Cosmetic and Investigational Dermatology, Journal of Investigative Dermatology, Journal of Skin Cancer, Journal of the Egyptian Women's Dermatologic Society, Leprosy Review, Open Dermatology Journal, Rosacea Review, Skin Therapy Letter, World Wide Wounds.[ 30 ] Journals can be seen on the site http://www.gfmer.ch/Medical_journals/Dermatology.htm .

The website of Italian Library Association

Here journals can be traced on the site http://www.aib.it/aib/commiss/cnur/peb/pebs.htm3 . This site provides both free and paid journal articles.

UK PubMed Central

UK PubMed Central (UKPMC) is a full-text article database that extends the functionality of the original PubMed Central (PMC) repository. UKPMC ( http://ukpmc.ac.uk ) has undergone considerable development since its inception in 2007 and now includes both a UKPMC and PubMed search, as well as access to other records such as Agricola, Patents, and recent biomedical theses. UKPMC also differs from PubMed/PMC in that the full text and abstract information can be searched in an integrated manner from one input box. All of the articles in UKPMC are “Free Access,” Not all content available in PMC is made available to UKPMC.[ 31 ]

The University of lowa libraries

Links to few free full-text articles are available at the site http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/eresources/genindexes.asp .

National library of medicine gateway

National library of medicine (NLM) is a user-friendly web-based system that searches not only MEDLINE but also several other NLM databases at the same time.[ 19 ] Articles can be searched here on http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov/gw/Cmd .

Medical Matrix

Medical Matrix ( http://www.medmatrix.org ) is a comprehensive guide to clinical medicine resources on the Internet.[ 19 ] Medical Matrix links to more than ten MEDLINE sites, including Gateway and PubMed and fee and open access sites.[ 19 ]

World Health Organization

Publications from World Health Organizations can be searched at the site http://www.who.int/publications/en/ .

British Medical Journal Group

Some low income and low middle income countries are entitled to free access of this site.[ 32 ] For other countries, all the articles are not free. Journals can be searched here at site http://group.bmj.com/products/journals/ . This site includes Journal of Sexually Transmitted Infections.

British medical journal (BMJ) Open is an online-only, open access general medical journal, publishing medical research from all disciplines and therapeutic areas.[ 33 ] The journal publishes all research study types, from study protocols to phase I trials to meta-analyses.[ 33 ] Articles can be searched at http://bmjopen.bmj.com/ .

Elsevier Journals

Few journals published by Elsevier, provide free access to non subscribers, after a predefined period of time has elapsed following the final publication.[ 34 ] The list of journals can be seen on website http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorsview.authors/delayedaccess .

Free full-text articles play a pivotal role in updating the knowledge of physicians and researchers. They play important role in preparation of any manuscript or thesis, for the persons who cannot subscribe to these articles due to any reason. Authors believe that these articles will be useful for such persons. Authors request the readers to contribute any other link for free full-text articles they know.

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Conflict of Interest: None declared.

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Research articles

Optimizing the releasing strategy used for the biological control of the sugarcane borer Diatraea saccharalis by Trichogramma galloi with computer modeling and simulation

• Adriano Gomes Garcia
• Eric Wajnberg
• José Roberto Postali Parra

PHOTH-graphene: a new 2D carbon allotrope with low barriers for Li-ion mobility

• E. A. J. Santos
• K. A. L. Lima
• L. A. Ribeiro Junior

A real-world pharmacovigilance study of amivantamab-related cardiovascular adverse events based on the FDA adverse event reporting system (FAERS) database

The H3K79me3 methyl-transferase Grappa is involved in the establishment and thermal plasticity of abdominal pigmentation in Drosophila melanogaster females

• Raphaël Narbey
• Emmanuèle Mouchel-Vielh
• Jean-Michel Gibert

Clinical characteristics and removal approaches of tracheal and bronchial foreign bodies in elders

• Ping-Yang Hong
• Xiao-Bin Zhang

Biomechanical comparative study on external fixators of new configurations in the treatment of Tile C pelvic injury

• Wenkang Jiang

Analysis of the potential regulatory mechanisms of female and latent genital tuberculosis affecting ovarian reserve function using untargeted metabolomics

• Zhimin Wang
• Xueyan Zhang
• Xiujuan Chen

Replication protein-A, RPA, plays a pivotal role in the maintenance of recombination checkpoint in yeast meiosis

• Arivarasan Sampathkumar
• Akira Shinohara

Association between Baltic sea diet and healthy Nordic diet index with risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: a case–control study

• Zahra Rasoulizadeh
• Abolfazl Namazi
• Mahdieh Hosseinzadeh

Potassium humate supplementation improves photosynthesis and agronomic and yield traits of foxtail millet

• Xiaolu Xiao

An efficient lightweight network for image denoising using progressive residual and convolutional attention feature fusion

• Wang Tiantian
• Yurong Guan

Chromatic vision and structural assessment in primary congenital glaucoma

• Renata Tiemi Kato
• Christiane Rolim-de-Moura
• Norma Allemann

Characterization of TGFβ1-induced tendon-like structure in the scaffold-free three-dimensional tendon cell culture system

• Bon-hyeock Koo
• Yeon-Ju Lee
• Kyu Sang Joeng

Metabolic engineering of omega-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids in plants using different ∆6- and ∆5-desaturases co-expressed with LPCAT from the marine diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum

• Sylwia Klińska-Bąchor
• Kamil Demski
• Antoni Banaś

Surgery is associated with better long-term outcomes than pharmacological treatment for obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis

• Leonardo Zumerkorn Pipek
• Walter Augusto Fabio Moraes
• Wellington Andraus

Comparative analysis of SEC61A1 mutant R236C in two patient-derived cellular platforms

• Matthias Weiand
• Vanessa Sandfort
• Andree Zibert

Changes in bacterial community composition in the uterus of Holstein cow with endometritis before and after treatment with oxytetracycline

• Xiao-Shi Cai
• Jia-Bao Zhang

Urinary metabolomic profiling of a cohort of Colombian patients with systemic lupus erythematosus

• Alejandra Rojo-Sánchez
• Ada Carmona-Martes
• Lisandro A. Pacheco-Lugo

A retrospective analysis of the role of age and sex in outcomes of non-surgical periodontal therapy at a single academic dental center

• Nikola Angelov
• Nikolaos Soldatos
• Karo Parsegian

Intra and interspecific audience effect on domestic dogs' behavioural displays and facial expressions

• Giulia Pedretti
• Chiara Canori
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The problem with making all academic research free

T here has been an earthquake in my corner of academia that will affect who teaches in prestigious universities and what ideas circulate among educated people around the world.

And it all happened because a concept rooted in good intentions — that academic research should be “open access,” free for everyone to read — has started to go too far.

The premise of open-access publishing is simple and attractive. It can cost libraries thousands of dollars a year to subscribe to academic journals, which sometimes means only academics affiliated with wealthy colleges and universities may access that research. But under open-access publishing, nearly anyone with an internet connection can find and read those articles for free. Authors win, because they find more readers. Academics around the world benefit, because they can access the latest scholarship. And the world wins, because scientific and intellectual progress is facilitated by the free exchange of ideas.

By now this model has taken hold in the natural sciences, especially in biology and biomedicine; during the pandemic many publishers removed paywalls from articles about vaccines and treatments. The Biden administration requires federally funded scholarly publications to be made freely available without any delay.

However, there is no such thing as a free academic article. Even with digital distribution, the expenses of running a journal are considerable. These costs include hosting the websites where people submit, peer-review, and edit articles; copyediting; advertising; preserving journal archives; and maintaining continuity as editors come and go.

As a result, unless journals have a source of revenue other than subscription fees, any move toward open access raises the question of who will cover the costs of publication.

One answer is that the money will come from authors themselves or their academic institutions or other backers. This works well enough in the natural sciences, because those researchers are often funded by grants, and some of that money can be set aside to cover a journal’s fees for publishing scientific articles. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation demands that all research funded by the foundation, including the underlying data, be published open access.

According to an MIT study , however, only a small fraction of scholars in the humanities publish their articles on an open-access basis. Unlike biologists and biomedical engineers, humanities scholars such as philosophers and historians do not get grants that can cover the publishing costs.

This means that if open access is to take hold in those fields as well — as many publishers and academics are advocating — the costs will have to be covered by some foundation or other sponsor, by the scholars’ institutions, or even by the scholars themselves. And all these models have serious downsides.

I’m a political philosopher. The earthquake in my field that I mentioned earlier shook one of our most prominent journals: the Journal of Political Philosophy.

Publishing an article in this journal has long made the difference between whether a candidate gets hired, tenured, or promoted at an elite institution of higher education. The high quality has stemmed in large part from the rigorous approach of the founding editor, Robert Goodin.

At the end of 2023, the publisher, Wiley, terminated its contract with Goodin. The reasons were not immediately clear, and over 1,000 academics, including me, signed a petition stating that we would not serve on the editorial board or write or review for the journal until Wiley reinstates Goodin. I recently attended a panel at an American Philosophical Association conference where philosophers voiced their anger and puzzlement about the situation.

One source of the problem appears to be that Wiley now charges the authors of an article or their institutions $3,840 to get published open access in the journal.

The Journal of Political Philosophy is actually hybrid open access, which means it waives the article processing charges for authors who permit their work to appear behind a subscription-only paywall. Nonetheless, Goodin and Anna Stilz , a Princeton professor and Journal of Political Philosophy editorial board member, point out that publishers like Wiley now have a strong incentive to favor open-access articles.

In the old model, in which university libraries subscribed to journals, editors were mainly incentivized to publish first-rate material that would increase subscriptions. In the open-access model, however, now that authors or their universities must cover the costs of processing articles, publishers of humanities journals seem to be incentivized to boost revenue by accepting as many articles as possible. According to Goodin , open access has “been the death knell of quality academic publishing.” The reason that Goodin lost his job, Goodin and Stilz imply, is that Wiley pressured Goodin to accept more articles to increase Wiley’s profits, and he said no. (Wiley representatives say that lines of communication had collapsed with Goodin.)

Early this year, Goodin cofounded a new journal titled simply Political Philosophy . The journal will be published by the Open Library of Humanities, which is subsidized by libraries and institutions around the world. But this version of open-access publishing does not have the financial stability of the old subscription model. Scholars affiliated with the Open Library of Humanities have pointed out that the project has substantial overhead costs, and it relied on a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that has already ended. The Open Library of Humanities is an experiment, and I hope that it works, but as of now it publishes only 30 journals , compared with the 1,600 journals that Wiley publishes.

The fact remains that no one has satisfactorily explained how open access could work in the humanities and social sciences.

In his 2023 book “ Athena Unbound : Why and How Scholarly Knowledge Should Be Free for All,” UCLA history professor Peter Baldwin attempts an answer. He points to Latin America, where some national governments cover all expenses of academic publishing. But this proposal ignores the fact that the governments of the United States and other nations probably do not want to pay for humanities and social sciences journals.

Baldwin also floats the idea of preprint depositories where academics could share documents on the cloud before they have undergone the (somewhat expensive) process of peer review. But this means that academics would lose the benefits that come from getting double-blind feedback from one’s peers. This idea would reduce the costs of publishing a journal article, but it would turn much academic writing into fancy blogging.

Ultimately, Baldwin’s solution is that authors might “have to participate directly, giving them skin in the game and helping contain costs.” This means academics might ask their employers to pay the article processing charges, ask a journal for the processing fees to be waived, or dig into their own pockets to pay to publish.

And it might mean less gets published overall. The journal Government and Opposition, published by Cambridge University Press, is entirely open access and charges $3,450 for an article to be published. I’d have to apply for a discount or a waiver to publish there. Or I could do what political philosophers in Japan and Bosnia and Herzegovina have told me they do: avoid submitting to open-access journals. Their universities will not cover their article processing charges except maybe in the top journals, and even the reduced fees can run into hundreds of dollars that these professors do not have.

In “Athena Unbound,” Baldwin notes that Harvard subscribes to 10 times as many periodicals as India’s Institute of Science. One can bemoan this fact, but one may also appreciate that Harvard’s largesse spread enough subscription revenue around to reputable journals to enable academics to avoid paying to publish in them, no matter whether they teach at regional state schools, non-elite private schools, or institutions of higher education in poor countries. For all its flaws, the old model meant that when rich alumni donated to their alma maters, it increased library budgets and thereby made it possible for scholars of poetry and state politics to run and publish in academic journals.

Until we have more evidence that open-access journals in the humanities and social sciences can thrive in the long run, academics need to appreciate the advantages of the subscription model.

Nicholas Tampio is a professor of political science at Fordham University in New York City.

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10 things to know about China’s policies on religion

Earlier this year, China issued new rules on religious activity that tighten oversight of clergy and congregations.

The rules are part of a long-standing strategy by the Chinese government to align religion with communism and ensure loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which espouses and promotes atheism. More recently , such rules have also been intended to bring religion in line with traditional Chinese culture and with “Xi Jinping Thought,” the Chinese leader’s blend of Marxism and nationalism.

China’s constitution says ordinary citizens enjoy “freedom of religious beliefs” and the government officially recognizes five religions: Buddhism, Catholicism, Islam, Protestantism and Daoism (also called Taoism). But authorities closely police religious activity. China has ranked among the world’s most restrictive governments every year since Pew Research Center began tracking restrictions on religion  in 2007.

This analysis of China’s policies on religion is based on our recent report, “Measuring Religion in China.” Read the methodology of the report . Additional information in this analysis comes from external sources that can be accessed through the links in the text.

Here are 10 things to know about how the Chinese government regulates religion, from our recent report, “Measuring Religion in China.”

China is pursuing a policy of “Sinicization” that requires religious groups to align their doctrines, customs and morality with Chinese culture. The campaign particularly affects so-called “foreign” religions – including Islam as well as Catholicism and Protestantism – whose adherents are expected to prioritize Chinese traditions and show loyalty to the state .

Sinicization takes various forms. Authorities have removed crosses from churches and demolished the domes and minarets of mosques to make them look more Chinese. Pastors and imams have reportedly been asked to focus on religious teachings that reflect socialist values . The government also plans to issue a newly annotated version of the Quran that will help Islamic teachings align with “Chinese culture in the new era.”

China’s restrictive policies toward Muslims – particularly Uyghurs in Xinjiang province – have been documented widely over the past decade . Human rights groups accuse China of subjecting Uyghurs to mass internment, surveillance and torture. The U.S. State Department has described events in Xinjiang as genocide , alleging that Chinese authorities have detained more than 1 million Chinese Muslims in specially built internment camps. Uyghurs make up 43% of Chinese Muslims.

China’s government rejects the accusations and says that relocations, camps and other forced measures are meant to improve Muslims’ lives. For example, Chinese officials have said camps in Xinjiang offer vocational training and counter religious extremism .

Christianity in China is governed by several sets of rules. Christians are allowed to worship in “official churches” registered with supervisory government agencies responsible for Protestantism and Catholicism . However, many Christians refuse this oversight and worship in underground churches.

Since Xi came to power in 2013, the government has banned evangelization online, tightened control over Christian activities outside of registered venues , and shut down churches that refuse to register . Authorities have also arrested prominent church leaders and some Christians reportedly have been held in internment camps .

In 2018, the Vatican and China signed an agreement over bishop appointments to help alleviate tensions for China’s Catholics – a deal that was criticized by many . Since then, the Chinese government has stepped up efforts to bring Catholic churches into the official system and  intensified its pressure  on those that refuse to join.

China treats Buddhism – particularly Han Buddhism , the most widespread branch in the country – more leniently than Christianity or Islam. Xi frequently praises Han Buddhists for having integrated Confucian, Daoist and other traditional Chinese beliefs and practices.

At the same time, China has cracked down on Tibetan Buddhists. Recently, Chinese authorities have been accused of carrying out  “political re-education” campaigns  meant to cement allegiance to Xi and discourage loyalty to the exiled Dalai Lama. Moreover, the Chinese government has been criticized for tearing down Tibetan Buddhist monuments, including  monasteries  and  statues .

Folk religion and ancient spiritual traditions play a large role in China. The government encourages some activities that it considers to be part of China’s cultural heritage and has financed the renovation of some folk religion temples . People in China are allowed to venerate the Chinese philosopher Confucius and participate in temple festivals where folk deities – e.g., Mazu , the goddess of the sea – are worshipped. Authorities have also brought Mazu festivals to Taiwanese worshipers as a way to gain political favor.

The Chinese government has tasked local governments with regulating folk religious activities to ensure they reflect cultural heritage and are guided by socialist values. Since 2015, local authorities have been registering temples with historical and cultural importance and making efforts to bring their staff and activity under state supervision. In some provinces, temples that local authorities perceived as socially and culturally insignificant have been demolished or closed, or converted into secular facilities.

Religious activity that falls outside of the five officially recognized religions and does not meet the government’s approval as a form of cultural heritage is often categorized by authorities as “superstition” or “evil cult.” For instance, Chinese law forbids witchcraft and sorcery, and the government opposes folk religious practices that include a superstitious element such as setting off firecrackers to ward off evil spirits.

Some groups, including Falun Gong , the Unification Church and the Children of God, are considered cults and banned . The government has been accused of arresting Falun Gong practitioners and subjecting them to systematic torture, such as organ harvesting .

The ruling Chinese Communist Party promotes atheism and discourages citizens from practicing religion. The 281 million Chinese people who belong to the CCP or its affiliated youth organizations are officially banned from engaging in a broad range of spiritual activities.

Still, the CCP tolerates occasional engagement in cultural customs. For example, it is acceptable to visit temples every once in a while . But visiting temples for all important religious days or  frequently consulting fortunetellers can lead to expulsion from the CCP. Nevertheless, some CCP members do identify with a religion or engage in religious practices, though generally at lower rates than non-CCP members.

Children under 18 are constitutionally prohibited from having any formal religious affiliation in China. There is also a ban on religious education, including Sunday schools, religious summer camps and other forms of youth religious groups . Schools focus on promoting non-religion and atheism, and many children join CCP-affiliated youth groups, where they must pledge commitment to atheism.

China’s attitude toward religion dates back to the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Early CCP leaders denounced religion as linked to “foreign cultural imperialism,” “feudalism” and “superstition,” and persecuted religious groups across the board.  During the  Cultural Revolution (1966-76), CCP chairman Mao Zedong vowed to eliminate “old things, old ideas, old customs and old habits,” and Red Guards attacked or destroyed  many temples, shrines, churches and mosques.

• International Religious Freedom & Restrictions
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• Religious Freedom & Restrictions

Globally, Government Restrictions on Religion Reached Peak Levels in 2021, While Social Hostilities Went Down

Religious restrictions around the world, china’s christian population appears to have stopped growing after rising rapidly in the 1980s and ’90s, anti-jewish harassment occurred in 94 countries in 2020, up from earlier years, religiously unaffiliated people face harassment in a growing number of countries, most popular.

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'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean?

ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing.

When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. Neither ZDNET nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers.

ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Our goal is to deliver the most accurate information and the most knowledgeable advice possible in order to help you make smarter buying decisions on tech gear and a wide array of products and services. Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards. If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article. If you see inaccuracies in our content, please report the mistake via this form .

How to write better ChatGPT prompts in 5 steps

ChatGPT is the generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool that's taken the world by storm. While there's always the possibility it will simply make stuff up , there's a lot you can do when crafting prompts to ensure the best possible outcome. That's what we'll be exploring in this how-to.

In this article, we'll show you how to write prompts that encourage the large language model (LLM) that powers  ChatGPT to provide the best possible answers. 

Also: Have 10 hours? IBM will train you in AI fundamentals - for free

Writing effective prompts, known as prompt engineering, has even become its own highly-paid discipline . Who knows? These tips could help you build the skills to become one of those highly paid prompt engineers. Apparently, these gigs can pay from $175,000 to $335,000 per year.  

How to write effective ChatGPT prompts

1. talk to the ai like you would a person.

One of the more interesting things I had to get used to when working with ChatGPT is that you don't program it, you talk to it. As a formally trained programmer, I've had to leave a lot of habits by the wayside when engaging with AI. Talking to it (and with it) requires a mindset shift.

When I say talk to it like a person, I mean talk to it like you would a co-worker or team member. If that's hard to do, give it a name. Alexa is taken, so maybe think of it as "Bob". This naming helps because when you talk to Bob, you might include conversational details, little anecdotes that give your story texture.

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When talking to a person, it would be natural for them to miss your point initially and require clarification, or veer away from the topic at hand and need to be wrangled back. You might need to fill in the backstory for them, or restate complex questions based on the answers they give you. 

This is called interactive prompting. Don't be afraid to ask multi-step questions: ask, get a response, and based on that response, ask another question. I've done this myself, sometimes 10 or 20 times in a row, and gotten very powerful results. Think of this as having a conversation with ChatGPT.

2. Set the stage and provide context

Writing a ChatGPT prompt is more than just asking a one-sentence question. It often involves providing relevant background information to set the context of the query.

Let's say that you want to prepare for a marathon (for the record, I do not run, dance, or jump -- this is merely an example). You could ask ChatGPT:

How can I prepare for a marathon?

However, you'll get a far more nuanced answer if you add that you're training for your first marathon. Try this instead: 

I am a beginner runner and have never run a marathon before, but I want to complete one in six months. How can I prepare for a marathon?

By giving the AI more information, you're helping it return a more focused answer. Even with ChatGPT's help, there's no way I'm going to run a marathon (unless I'm doing it with a V-Twin motor under my seat). Here are two more examples of questions that provide context:

I am planning to travel to Spain in a few months and would like to learn some basic Spanish to help me communicate with local residents. I am looking for online resources that are suitable for beginners and provide a structured and comprehensive approach to learning the language. Can you recommend some online resources for learning Spanish as a beginner?

In this case, rather than just asking about learning resources, the context helps focus the AI on learning how to communicate on the ground with local residents. Here's another example: 

I am a business owner interested in exploring how blockchain technology can be used to improve supply chain efficiency and transparency. I am looking for a clear and concise explanation of the technology and examples of how it has been used in the context of supply chain management. Can you explain the concept of blockchain technology and its potential applications in supply chain management?

In this example, rather than just asking for information on blockchain and how it works, the focus is specifically on blockchain for supply chain efficiency and how it might be used in a real-world scenario. 

Also:  How to use Image Creator from Microsoft Designer (formerly Bing Image Creator) Lastly, let's get into how to construct a detailed prompt. 

One note: I limit the answer to 500 words because ChatGPT seems to break when asked to produce somewhere between 500 and 700 words, leaving stories mid-sentence and not resuming properly when asked to continue. I hope future versions provide longer answers, because premises like this can generate fun story beginnings: 

Write a short story for me, no more than 500 words. The story takes place in 2339, in Boston. The entire story takes place inside a Victorian-style bookstore that wouldn't be out of place in Diagon Alley. Inside the store are the following characters, all human: The proprietor: make this person interesting and a bit unusual, give them a name and at least one skill or characteristic that influences their backstory and possibly influences the entire short story. The helper: this is a clerk in the store. His name is Todd. The customer and his friend: Two customers came into the store together, Jackson and Ophelia. Jackson is dressed as if he's going to a Steampunk convention, while Ophelia is clearly coming home from her day working in a professional office. Another customer is Evangeline, a regular customer in the store, in her mid-40s. Yet another customer is Archibald, a man who could be anywhere from 40 to 70 years old. He has a mysterious air about himself and seems both somewhat grandiose and secretive. There is something about Archibald that makes the others uncomfortable. A typical concept in retail sales is that there's always more inventory "in the back," where there's a storeroom for additional goods that might not be shown on the shelves where customers browse. The premise of this story is that there is something very unusual about this store's "in the back." Put it all together and tell something compelling and fun.

You can see how the detail provides more for the AI to work with. First, feed "Write me a story about a bookstore" into ChatGPT and see what it gives you. Then feed in the above prompt and you'll see the difference.

3. Tell the AI to assume an identity or profession

One of ChatGPT's coolest features is that it can write from the point of view of a specific person or profession. In a previous article, I showed how you can make ChatGPT write like a pirate or Shakespeare , but you can also have it write like a teacher, a marketing executive, a fiction writer -- anyone you want. 

Also: How ChatGPT can rewrite and improve your existing code  

For example, I can ask ChatGPT to describe the Amazon Echo smart home device, but to do so from the point of view of a product manager, a caregiver, and a journalist in three separate prompts: 

From the point of view of its product manager, describe the Amazon Echo Alexa device. From the point of view of an adult child caring for an elderly parent, describe the Amazon Echo Alexa device. From the point of view of a journalist, describe the Amazon Echo Alexa device.

Try dropping these three prompts into ChatGPT to see its complete response. 

I've pulled a few lines from ChatGPT's responses, so you can see how it interprets different perspectives.  From the product manager identity:  I can confidently say that this is one of the most innovative and revolutionary products in the smart home industry.

From the caregiver identity:  The device's ability to set reminders and alarms can be particularly helpful for elderly individuals who may have trouble remembering to take their medication or attend appointments.

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And from the journalist identity:  From a journalistic perspective, the Echo has made headlines due to privacy concerns surrounding the collection and storage of user data.

You can see how different identities allow the AI to provide different perspectives as part of its response. To expand this, you can let the AI do a thought experiment. Let's look at some of the issues that went into the creation of something like Alexa:

The year is 2012. Siri has been out for the iPhone for about a year, but nothing like an Alexa smart home device has been released. The scene is an Amazon board meeting where the Echo smart assistant based on Alexa has just been proposed.  Provide the arguments, pro and con, that board members at that meeting would have been likely to discuss as part of their process of deciding whether or not to approve spending to invest in developing the device.  Feel free to also include participation by engineering design experts and product champions, if that provides more comprehensive perspective.

It's also good to know that making minor changes to your prompts can significantly change ChatGPT's response. For example, when I changed the phrase, "Provide the arguments, pro and con, that..." to "Provide the pro and con arguments as dialogue, that...," ChatGPT rewrote its answer, switching from a list of enumerated pros and cons to an actual dialogue between participants.

4. Keep ChatGPT on track

As mentioned above, ChatGPT has a tendency to go off the rails, lose track of the discussion, or completely fabricate answers. 

There are a few techniques you can use to help keep it on track and honest.

One of my favorite things to do is ask ChatGPT to justify its responses. I'll use phrases like "Why do you think that?" or "What evidence supports your answer?" Often, the AI will simply apologize for making stuff up and come back with a new answer. Other times, it might give you some useful information about its reasoning path. In any case, don't forget to apply the tips I provide for having ChatGPT cite sources .

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If you have a fairly long conversation with ChatGPT, you'll start to notice that the AI loses the thread. Not that that's unique to AIs -- even in extended conversations with humans, someone is bound to get lost. That said, you can gently guide the AI back on track by reminding it what the topic is, as well as what you're trying to explore.

5. Don't be afraid to play and experiment

One of the best ways to up your skill at this craft is to play around with what the chatbot can do.

Try feeding ChatGPT a variety of interesting prompts to see what it will do with them. Then change them up and see what happens. Here are five to get you started:

• Imagine you are a raindrop falling from the sky during a thunderstorm. Describe your journey from the moment you form in the cloud to the moment you hit the ground. What do you see, feel, and experience?
• You are a toy that has been left behind in an attic for decades. Narrate your feelings, memories of playtimes past, and your hopes of being rediscovered.
• Write the final diary entry of a time traveler who has decided to settle down in a specific era, explaining why they chose that time and what they've learned from their travels.
• Imagine a dialogue between two unlikely objects, like a teacup and a wristwatch, discussing the daily routines and challenges they face.
• Describe a day in an ant colony from the perspective of an ant. Dive deep into the politics, challenges, and social structures of the ant world.

Pay attention not only to what the AI generates, but how it generates what it does, what mistakes it makes, and where it seems to run into limits. All of that detail will help you expand your prompting horizons.

More prompt-writing tips 

• Feel free to re-ask the question. ChatGPT will often change its answer with each ask.
• Make small changes to your prompts to guide it into giving you a better answer.
• ChatGPT will retain its awareness of previous conversations as long as the current page is open. If you leave that page, it will lose awareness. To be clear, ChatGPT will also sometimes lose the thread of the conversation without reason, so be aware you may need to start over from time to time.
• Similarly, opening a new page will start the discussion with fresh responses.
• Be sure to specify the length of the response you want. Answers over about 500 words sometimes break down. 
• You can correct and clarify prompts based on how the AI answered previously. If it's misinterpreting you, you may be able to just tell it what it missed and continue.
• Rephrase questions if ChatGPT doesn't want to answer what you're asking. Use personas to elicit answers that it might not otherwise want to give.
• If you want sources cited , tell it to support or justify its answers.
• ChatGPT custom instructions are now available to free users. You can  give ChatGPT a set of prompts that are always available , so you don't have to retype them.
• Keep experimenting.
• Consider getting the ChatGPT Plus subscription . You can then use your own data for powerful analytics . You can also pull data from the Web . 
• Try asking the same question of Gemini  (formerly Bard) or Copilot (formerly Bing Chat). Both will interpret your prompts differently and answer differently. This is effectively getting a second opinion on your prompt, and can give you alternate perspectives.
• Ask for examples. If you want to see how well ChatGPT understands what you're asking for, ask it "Can you give me three examples of how that works?" or similar questions.
• Ask it to repeat parts of your original requests back to you. For example, if you feed it an article to analyze, you can tell it something like, "Just to be sure you understand, please echo back the first three headlines," or "I want to be sure you understand what I mean, so summarize the main conflict discussed in this article." 
• Sometimes ChatGPT just fails. Keep trying, but also be willing to give up and move on to other tools. It's not perfect...yet.

What type of prompts work best with ChatGPT? 

Part of what makes ChatGPT so compelling is you can ask it almost anything. That said, keep in mind that it's designed to provide written answers. If you want a list of websites, you're better off talking to Google. 

Also:  How to use DALL-E 3 in ChatGPT

If you want some form of computation, talk to Wolfram Alpha . Give ChatGPT open-ended prompts, encourage creativity, and don't be afraid to share personal experiences or emotions. Plus, keep in mind that the AI's knowledge ends in 2021  for ChatGPT 3.5 and December 2023 for ChatGPT 4 in ChatGPT Plus.

How can I adjust the complexity of ChatGPT responses?

You can directly specify the complexity level by including it in your prompt. Add "... at a high school level" or "... at a level intended for a Ph.D. to understand" to the end of your question. You can also increase complexity of output by increasing the richness of your input. The more you provide in your prompt, the more detailed and nuanced ChatGPT's response will be. You can also include other specific instructions, like "Give me a summary," "Explain in detail," or "Provide a technical description."

Also:  How does ChatGPT actually work?

You can also pre-define profiles. For example, you could say "When evaluating something for a manager, assume an individual with a four-year business college education, a lack of detailed technical understanding, and a fairly limited attention span, who likes to get answers that are clear and concise. When evaluating something for a programmer, assume considerable technical knowledge, an enjoyment of geek and science fiction references, and a desire for a complete answer. Accuracy is deeply important to programmers, so double-check your work."

If you ask ChatGPT to "explain C++ to a manager" and "explain C++ to a programmer," you'll see how the responses differ.

What do I do if ChatGPT refuses to answer or I don't like its answer? 

There are some guardrails built into ChatGPT. It tends to shut down if you ask it political questions, for example. That's what's built into the system. While you might be able to tease out an answer, it's probably not going to provide great value. That said, feel free to keep trying with different phrasing or perspectives. 

You can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Be sure to subscribe to my weekly update newsletter on Substack , and follow me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz , on Facebook at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz , on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz , and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV .

More on AI tools

Google releases two new free resources to help you optimize your ai prompts, my top 5 tools to beat distractions and get more writing done - or any work, really, create your own e-book using ai for just $25.

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AI Is Transforming Drug Matching for Cancer, Rare Diseases — Here's How One AI pharmaceutical startup works backward, starting from drugs already on the market.

By Sherin Shibu • Apr 25, 2024

Key Takeaways

• Transcripta Bio attempts to take on rare diseases by matching older, existing drugs to newer use cases.
• The startup's unusual approach could be a more cost-effective solution to drug matching.
• AI is being used in healthcare settings across the private and public sectors.

AI tools are changing how pharmaceutical companies and public health institutions think about finding drugs to treat rare diseases.

For example, Transcripta Bio , a Silicon Valley-based pharmaceutical startup, is using AI to match existing medications with new use cases, according to a profile in Bloomberg this week.

The company uses AI software to identify drugs that could alleviate the effects of rare diseases. Instead of narrowing in on one condition to see if an experimental drug works on the genes associated with that condition, Transcripta works backward by starting from drugs already on the market.

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The startup tests drugs identified as a good match by its AI software to determine if those drugs have additional use cases and also affect genes associated with rare diseases.

Transcripta's unusual approach could be more cost-effective. The company claims that it can conduct screenings across all known rare genetic diseases for about $2 million, which is what a pharmaceutical company might pay to start research on a new drug for one disease, per Bloomberg.

The company has raised about $30 million to date.

"It's now much more capital efficient," Chris Moxham, chief executive officer and chief scientific officer at Transcripta, told the publication. "It's not just one disease at a time."

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Other startups, including Century Health , which secured $2 million in pre-seed funding last month, are also trying to harness existing data about drugs for new, real-time applications. Century Health in particular is working to commercialize drug breakthroughs for diseases like Alzheimer's with its AI platform.

It's not just startups that are interested in AI applications for healthcare. AI chip giant Nvidia created an AI cloud service specifically for AI-aided drug development and released two dozen new AI tools last month for healthcare.

One standout tool was a bot called Hippocratic that outperformed real nurses in all areas, including how a medication impacted labs and how a lab value compared to a target range.

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On the public health side, researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), created an AI tool last week called PERCEPTION that showed promise in predicting if a patient would respond to certain cancer treatment drugs over others.

In a study published in Nature Cancer on Thursday, the researchers wrote that PERCEPTION outperformed the industry standard for predictors "in all clinical cohorts."

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