Every academic article has a corresponding author whose email address is listed on the first page. If an article is paywalled, just send a short, polite email requesting a PDF from the author. 95% of the time you’ll receive it within a day. People like knowing their work is being read!
ok i have another quote tweet prompt. what's something, big or small, related to your job or hobby, that most people don't know that you would like to have them know? it can be a concept, a piece of history, some vocabulary, or something else.
P.S. I usually add a sentence like “if you have other papers you think I should read, please include them.” Often an author will have more recent work related to a paper I’m requesting.
Since it’s a FAQ: what if corresponding author has changed email? That’s what ORCID is for. What if they have left academia? Most articles have multiple authors. If 2nd or last author email isn’t easy to find with search, try finding a different paper where they are corresponding author, get email.
Also, some conversations in my mentions are indicative of a cultural difference between space science and some other fields. In my experience, planetary & astro folks are really excited to share their work. And because they work in big teams they’ll often happily send collaborators’ papers too.
There are also mechanical distinctions between fields. In mine you're more likely to find the email address on the last page (though I think that's fortunately starting to change).
ALSO even if you do have access... you can email people to tell them their article was helpful. I've emailed some authors to be like "Hey thanks for [your article about topic] it's super clear and I use it a lot for teaching about [topic]!" The world could use more good vibes sent around.
I didn’t see the reference to it in the paper, but it was not an open source paper. Clicked the SI hoping for a bit of info I might be able to use without the paper in hand and to MY SURPRISE! I have NO idea how they managed to get it through the editors.
I’m going to have to go find the paper again, but since it was a relatively recent search, I’m hoping I can track it down. Because I agree, I’d love to ask them.
When I was working on my dissertation there was an out of print book I desperately wanted. Through the grad student grapevine I learned that the author would send you a copy in exchange for a donation to a charity she supported. It was amazing.
Assuming that corresponding authors email address is the same as when the paper was published. I will lose access to my uni email once i have finished publishing the last of my papers now i am no longer in academia.
Maybe this is something for you. You can store all your current contact details, articles, etc. there. Many journals now also publish this Nummer.
orcid.org
Sure. I could do that. But i also dont want to give out my personal email… or be getting emails for next 40 yrs asking for full text either.. my ORCID can stay as it is. My point is dont expect the email still goes to the C author.
Yes, this is something I advise graduate students to do from the start. Make your own webpage (on a URL that you own, not a uni’s) and set up your own email address for professional use, so you can maintain a constant online presence even when shifting employment. I’m emily at lakdawalla dot com.
Good idea! Not sure id keep up payments and checking email long after im out of the game tho. 1yr on from last PT paycheck and i already resent the amount of spam/newsletters in the inbox.
Its also not like i would still have a pdf of my older papers around or be qualified to talk about the topic of the paper with any authority. Also I don't particularly care that much for the research topic of my older papers anymore.
Good point. In my case, I usually only have the original Word documents, sometimes PDFs as proofs. But I don't have the actual article in the print layout with page numbers either. 🤔
Yeah exactly. On all fronts. I am increasingly keen to put academia behind me. I dont need a constant reminder that i wasnt elite enough to get funding to keep on keeping on. Pass
ResearchGate further facilitates this process. Person finds paper there, presses button to send request to author, author presses another button to send copy stored within ResearchGate to person requesting. Got many a request this way.
I’m a freelancer and have access to exactly one, which I subscribe to (apart from open-access ones). It can feel like a speed bump to have to contact people to get papers, but on the other hand it’s a great way to introduce yourself to folks & make them aware of your interest & work.
In my field they rarely include contact details on the article itself, but it can usually be found with cursory googling and I've never had an author say no when I asked for help finding their work! Several have sent me multiple related articles when I asked for one.
In my experience, most emails to authors are ignored. I assume because they don't even see them or are too busy. I just don't think people should expect a 95% success rate unless they're KOLs themselves.
