Search across guide titles, topics, keywords, and content throughout the Researcher's Field Guide.
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A local research problem can appear scarcely studied when the databases you search do not adequately cover the journals, languages, repositories, or document types where local evidence is published. Before declaring a research gap, test whether you may instead have a discovery gap.
Read Guide →Research does not cease to exist because it is absent from a major international index. Separate database coverage from research existence, then search the publication systems where relevant local evidence is actually distributed.
Read Guide →Local evidence may be distributed across theses, government reports, institutional repositories, technical documents, and other grey literature rather than conventional journals. Finding it requires searching the organizations and systems that produce the evidence, not only bibliographic databases.
Read Guide →A publisher paywall does not necessarily mean the paper is inaccessible or that you need to pay for it yourself. Several legitimate routes may provide the same paper through your library, an open-access copy, a repository, interlibrary loan, or the author.
Read Guide →A paywalled journal article may have a legitimate open version elsewhere. Learn where to search, how to recognize different manuscript versions, and how to verify that the copy you find is the paper you actually need.
Read Guide →An accepted manuscript has passed peer review but is not necessarily identical to the final published article. For many reading purposes it may contain the research you need, but post-acceptance changes, corrections, and citation details can sometimes make the version of record important.
Read Guide →If you cannot access a research paper, contacting the author is a legitimate option and may result in a copy or an authorized access link. Learn whom to contact, how to make the request, and why the version an author can share may depend on publisher policies and publication rights.
Read Guide →An institutional repository is a digital service used by a university or other organization to collect, preserve, and provide access to scholarly outputs created by its community. It may contain an accessible manuscript of a paper even when the publisher's version is behind a paywall.
Read Guide →A paper uploaded to ResearchGate or Academia.edu is not automatically reliable or unreliable simply because of where you found it. Verify the paper's identity, publication status, manuscript version, provenance, and current scholarly record before relying on the uploaded file.
Read Guide →Finding a citation does not mean the full paper is available in the database where you found it. Verify the reference, search systematically across publisher, repository, and library routes, and do not treat an abstract or another author's description as a substitute for reading the original.
Read Guide →Reading an abstract can establish that a paper exists and provide a concise account of its purpose and reported findings, but it rarely gives enough information to evaluate the study fully. Whether you should cite it depends on the claim you are making and whether the abstract actually supports that claim.
Read Guide →If you know a study only because another paper describes or cites it, you have not consulted the original study. Find and read the original whenever reasonably possible; if you cannot, make the secondary route visible rather than citing the original as though you read it yourself.
Read Guide →Secondary citation makes it explicit that you learned about an original source through another work rather than consulting the original yourself. It can be appropriate when the original genuinely cannot be obtained, but it should usually remain a fallback rather than a shortcut around reading accessible sources.
Read Guide →A language barrier does not automatically make an important research source unusable. Translation tools can help you determine relevance and sometimes understand substantial portions of a paper, but important methodological, numerical, or interpretive claims may require verification by a fluent reader or reliable human translation.
Read Guide →Being able to read an article does not necessarily mean you can access every file associated with it. Learn how to identify the barrier, locate legitimate copies, and decide what you can safely conclude without the supplementary material.
Read Guide →A paper may refer to an appendix, protocol, or supporting document that is surprisingly difficult to find. Learn where to search, how to verify the correct document, and what to do if it remains unavailable.
Read Guide →A working publisher page does not necessarily mean a downloadable PDF is available. Learn how to distinguish access restrictions from format and technical problems and how to find legitimate full text.
Read Guide →An author’s accepted manuscript has passed peer review but is not necessarily identical to the final published article. Learn when it can support your research and what you should verify before relying on it.
Read Guide →Different versions of the same paper can contain more than formatting changes. Learn how to identify each version, trace what changed, and decide which information is appropriate to use.
Read Guide →Not every inaccessible paper deserves the same retrieval effort. Learn how to decide when another search, library request, or author email is justified and when it is reasonable to stop.
Read Guide →A secondary source can tell you what someone else says an inaccessible source contains, but that is not the same as reading the original. Learn when transparent non-retrieval is preferable to indirect reconstruction.
Read Guide →A paper belongs in your literature review because it helps answer the review question and meets the criteria appropriate to your review, not simply because it appeared in your search. Learn how to make inclusion decisions consistently and transparently.
Read Guide →Relevance and methodological quality answer different questions in a literature review. A study may be highly relevant yet methodologically weak, and whether that weakness warrants exclusion depends on the review design and criteria established in advance.
Read Guide →Title and abstract screening is not about deciding whether a paper is good or reading it in full. Your task is to identify clearly ineligible records while retaining anything that could reasonably meet your review criteria.
Read Guide →You do not need the full text of every record your search retrieves. Retrieve it when a paper remains potentially eligible or when the title and abstract do not provide enough information for a defensible decision.
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