sci-hub has already been mentioned, but I will say that though it is not piracy, depending on the field, you can find free version “pre-prints” of papers on arxiv.org and socarxiv.org
Yeah that seems the most appropriate way to read them ngl. Would definitely try emailing them first and if they dont respond then look onto the other options other wise people have commented.
Many Profs or labs will have a website where the paper is hosted too. It used to be that you could host on ResearchGate but publishers stamp that out routinely.
A lot of research can be downloaded if it’s open access. If it is not, you can request papers to the authors, this is really easy in platforms like ResearchGate. Others have also mentioned SciHub if you are okay with the arrr option.
Specifically, the corresponding author (which should have their email listed in the publication)
Keep in mind you may get an “uncorrected proof” or “author copy” since many authors don’t want to run afoul of their publisher’s guidelines on giving out copies
You could try Sci-Hub and LibGen. If you don’t find what you’re looking for, you can always email the authors or other scholars who may have access to the paper you’re interested in. A less alternative site would be arXiv, but it just has preprints.
Emailing the author has quite a good succes rate. Many just forced to use a publisher to get it out but love giving their paper to those who are interested.
Atleast that’s my experience in trying to get certain papers for my studies.
Many publications on arxiv (or biorxiv or medrxiv, etc) are early drafts, or otherwise not scientifically rigorous and wouldn’t be published in an actual journal due to failing peer review. Take what you find there with a grain of salt.
Although you should also take any single peer-reviewed article with a grain of salt as well.
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