{"id":2001,"date":"2013-11-04T08:25:55","date_gmt":"2013-11-04T08:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/how-to-make-your-paper-more-accessible-through-self-archiving\/"},"modified":"2025-01-15T06:45:31","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T06:45:31","slug":"how-to-make-your-paper-more-accessible-through-self-archiving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/how-to-make-your-paper-more-accessible-through-self-archiving","title":{"rendered":"How to make your paper more accessible through self-archiving"},"content":{"rendered":"

So you\u2019ve completed your study and published your paper in the journal of your choice. Now you want to make your paper accessible to more and more readers within and outside the scientific community so as to increase its impact. One way to increase the visibility of your paper is through self-archiving.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>

What is\u00a0<\/span><\/span>self-archiving?<\/span><\/strong>
Self-archiving is the practice of placing digital versions of scientific literature online. When you self-archive your research, you make it freely available to anyone on the Internet. In other words, self-archiving makes your research widely \u201cvisible, accessible, harvestable, searchable, and useable,\u201d1<\/sup>\u00a0thus increasing its reach and impact, and possibly the number of citations it receives.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Benefits<\/p>\n

Where does self-archiving fit in the publishing process?<\/span><\/strong>
As the figure below shows, you can self-archive different versions of your research paper: (a) the version before peer review, called the \u201cpre-print,\u201d and (b) the version that has been peer reviewed and accepted for publication, called the \u201crefereed post-print.\u201d All versions of papers made available online are referred to as \u201ce-prints.\u201d<\/span>

Figure: Stages when manuscripts may be self-archived (adapted<\/span>5<\/sup>)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Stages<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Where can you self-archive?\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Research articles can be self-archived in repositories, which are electronic archives, or on personal servers.<\/span>6<\/sup><\/p>\n

Institutional repositories:<\/span>\u00a0Many universities and research institutions own repositories where all their members can deposit their research papers. This enables researchers from that institution to view each other\u2019s work and gives anyone interested a broad view of all work being conducted through that institution.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Subject-based repositories:<\/span>\u00a0Some archives are subject-area specific and tend to be very popular in their respective disciplines, for example,\u00a0<\/span>PubMed<\/a>\u00a0for biomedical studies;\u00a0<\/span>RePEc<\/a>\u00a0for economics; and\u00a0<\/span>arXiv<\/a>\u00a0most popularly for physics, mathematics, and computer science.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Personal servers or profile pages:\u00a0<\/span>Researchers can upload their work onto their own web pages. Further, some social networking sites for researchers, like\u00a0<\/span>ResearchGate<\/a>\u00a0, have sections dedicated to uploaded publications.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Copyright issues related to self-archiving<\/span><\/strong>\"When<\/p>\n