# Scientific Papers Do Not Have to Be So Expensive

By [0000000000](https://paragraph.com/@zzzcoin) · 2024-01-15

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Nobody likes paywalls.

However, if you’ve been tasked to write a paper in school or have tried searching for more technical explanations when you write for a blog, you would undoubtedly have faced a paywall scarier than those monthly subscription news websites or blogs — the paywall of an academic journal.

Unlike the $0.50 per week subscription to The New York Times and Wall Street Journal or the $5 per month fee to be a Medium member (all 3 of which become even cheaper if you subscribe annually), academic journals are _expensive_.

When faced with a paywall, you might find yourself staring at a price tag of between [$20 to $60 per article](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/26235/is-there-an-affordable-way-for-non-students-to-subscribe-to-multi-journals-archi) (of course, these are longer than your typical news or blog article) if you don’t have a subscription to that particular academic journal. And subscriptions are not cheap either. Many specialized journals (think of each like niche sites not unlike Bloomberg, In-Fisherman Magazine, and Vogue) [charge more than $5000 a year](https://slate.com/technology/2016/04/the-lawsuit-against-sci-hub-begs-the-question-why-are-academic-journals-so-expensive-anyway.html).

Furthermore, since researchers have to look for research from different sources (one cannot just cite all the papers from a single academic journal — much like how we should read from different news sources to ensure that we understand different perspectives), the cost balloons quickly.

For example, a researcher in Iran found that because his university had poor access to journals, he would have to [pay around $1000 a week to read the papers he wanted to access](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.352.6285.508) for his research.

While you might think that the problem faced by the researcher in Iran is limited to poorly funded universities, even [world-renowned universities like Havard are struggling to afford all the journal subscriptions](https://slate.com/technology/2016/04/the-lawsuit-against-sci-hub-begs-the-question-why-are-academic-journals-so-expensive-anyway.html#lf_comment=488831053).

**Why Are They So Expensive Anyway?**
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There are many reasons why reading academia is expensive with the biggest reason being a small readership.

While mainstream news and blogs have a wider audience while being able to publish a wide variety of content to attract readers, academic journals are

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*Originally published on [0000000000](https://paragraph.com/@zzzcoin/scientific-papers-do-not-have-to-be-so-expensive)*