SLPs: How to get access to full journal articles

The primary way to obtain a journal article is to go to the publisher’s website and simply pay for it. This isn't what you had to do in grad school, but it's the way it works once you no longer have access to a university subscription. When you search an article's title, the journal's website is almost always the first thing that pops up. To purchase a single article from a journal reviewed by TISLP, it’ll cost you between $12 and $55. Some journals also allow you to rent the article for 48 hours for much cheaper (usually around $6). Just like anything else you’d need for therapy—books, toys, treatment materials—scholarly articles have an associated cost. (Not a fan of that cost? You're not alone.)

(Now, back up: recall that if you need to FIND an article in the first place, free databases include PubMed, for medical research, and ERIC, for educational research. But once you have the title of the article you want, here's how to proceed...)

So, if you're a member of the American Speech–Language–Hearing Association (ASHA), you get access to their journals for free. If you’re additionally a member of at least one ASHA Special Interest Group (ASHA SIG), you get the Perspectives publications for free too. There are many reasons to belong to ASHA, but journal access is certainly an important one. (NOTE: Similar perks exist for U.K., Canadian, and Australian professionals; check with your national organization.) 
 
But—back to the journals we DON'T get for free (which is most of them). Do people really have to pay in order to be able to read research? Well, yes. However, not everybody has to pay (because of where they work) and not everybody does pay (because they find a backdoor way to gain access). Here are some ways people get journal articles for free:
 

• Unpaywall: Download the app, Unpaywall. It installs within your internet browser, and as soon as you open a link to a journal article, it'll direct you toward a free version (BOOM!). This is your single best option. If this doesn't work, proceed to the next steps...
• Do a basic "Google" search for the article. Not a Google Scholar search, but a basic search. As stated previously, the first site to pop up will be the publisher's. That may or may not be "open" (free access). But, subsequent hits on your Google search will be places like ResearchGate or the author's own website. These are good places to find that article for free. ***Every single month, TISLP finds approximately a third of the journal articles for free using either the Unpaywall app (above) or a basic Google search***
• Other search options: It may also be helpful to look for at what the scientist's university offers. Most universities have some version of an institutional repository (also called scholarly commons), where they host research published by their scientists. Sometimes free, but not always. First, you have to know what university the scientist publishing the article works at (usually shown on the journal's website). Then, you can look at a list, or just Google the university's repository. Searching repositories is a much bigger pain than Google, but, hey, if you want to save a buck!
• Visit a university. Many universities offer public access passes if you visit the university library in order to obtain materials. There are often limits (e.g. you can only use the computer to access journals for one hour), and the details of what you can get access to vary widely among schools. But it's worth looking into, because you may be only a short drive from all the articles you want. People also will sometimes ask someone they know at a university to get an article for them (this isn't generally legal, but depends highly upon the nature of collaboration between the person asking and person sharing the article).
• Get it from your employer. People who work at large hospitals (or large networks) are often surprised to learn that they actually have journal access similar to what universities have. Ask your employer about this.
• Ask the author for it. Depending on the journal’s copyright policies, and what exactly the author gives you, this is usually legal. It’s the author’s job to know the publication rights related to their work. Do NOT share an article an author gives you with others, and don't put it anywhere online. The author gave it to you, and so if you share it further, you're responsible for whether or not it's being shared legally. Remember— the publisher owns the article, not the author.
• The last isn't so much an 'option' as simply a point we want to make, because it is out there. Some people are getting what they need through illegal websites that offer massive sources of pirated journal articles. We cannot endorse such sites. However, we do think it's important you know about these because of how it's changing the climate of academic publishing, and spurring the "Open Science" movement. To learn more, see here, here, and here.

​So clearly there are many options. And, clearly, the method for accessing research articles for the general public is far from ideal. For now, we simply encourage you to be part of the conversation on academic publishing. Be part of the conversation on what SLPs need in order to be able to provide evidence-based practice.

UPDATE: Here's another blog post with links out to options. 

***One more thing— the articles TISLP shows you are always brand new,  ahead of print. These new articles tend to be expensive when first published, then become free later on (e.g. the publication embargo ends, they become open access, or end up available on a website). So if you're wanting an article but can wait, you can always just add it to your "To Read" list and try to find it again later. In general, the longer you wait, the more likely you are to find an article for free online.