Why It’s Not Always Easy to Read the Research

One thing I’ve learned over the past year is that finding research and accessing research are two very different things.

Many peer-reviewed journal articles sit behind expensive paywalls. Universities and hospitals pay substantial subscription fees that give students, faculty, and staff access to these databases. Independent clinicians and researchers often don’t have that same access.

That means independent researchers spend a surprising amount of time searching for legal ways to obtain the literature—using open-access repositories, contacting authors, visiting university libraries, and purchasing books that aren’t freely available.

Over the past year, I’ve done all of those things.

I purchased a community library membership at a local college so I could legally use its research databases. Because publisher licensing generally restricts remote access, I went to the library, searched for articles on their desktop computers, and saved papers to a thumb drive to read later.

I’ve also purchased numerous books—both new and used through Amazon and ThriftBooks—because many foundational texts in neuroscience, psychology, trauma, and neurodevelopment simply aren’t available online.

It isn’t always convenient, but when you’re committed to following the evidence, you find a way.

Many people also don’t realize that community access may be available where they live. Many universities offer guest or community library memberships that provide on-site access to subscription databases, even if remote access isn’t included. State libraries, PubMed Central, Google Scholar, and contacting authors directly can also help people legally access scientific literature.

Another misconception is that using Google or AI means someone isn’t doing “real” research.

The reality is that Google Scholar, library databases, citation indexes, reference managers, and AI tools have become part of the modern research workflow. They help researchers locate studies, organize information, identify related literature, and summarize content.

The tool is not the evidence. The peer-reviewed literature is.

The real work is reading the original studies, evaluating methodology, comparing findings across multiple sources, recognizing limitations, and updating conclusions as new evidence emerges.

One mistake I’ve made wasn’t in reading the research—it was trying to save time afterward.

After reading articles, I occasionally asked an AI tool to help complete citation details or add DOIs. Most of the time it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. A wrong DOI or mismatched citation occasionally made its way into my reference list.

Those mistakes were my responsibility, and I corrected them.

I’ve also learned something about myself in the process. When I’m well-rested and working within my available bandwidth, I’m generally more careful about checking citations and references. When I’m mentally fatigued or pushing beyond my available cognitive resources, I’m more likely to overlook small details or rely on a tool a little more than I should.

More broadly, when you’re combing through a few hundred books and journal articles, the sheer volume of information increases the opportunity for human error. That’s why researchers build verification into the process, welcome corrections, and update their work when mistakes are discovered.

For me, that’s become another real-world example of the Bandwidth Model™. As cognitive resources become depleted, attention to detail and error detection can become less reliable. Recognizing those limitations isn’t an excuse—it’s one reason good systems include checks, verification, and transparency.

Open Science is helping make high-quality research more accessible to clinicians, researchers, educators, students, and the public. The easier it is to access quality evidence, the better informed our conversations and decisions can become.

Research isn’t just typing a question into Google.

It’s asking better questions, finding the best available evidence, reading the original studies and scholarly books, evaluating methodology, checking citations, recognizing limitations, correcting mistakes, and continuing to learn.

If there’s one thing this past year has taught me, it’s this:

Good researchers aren’t the ones who never make mistakes. They’re the ones who verify their work, acknowledge errors, make corrections, and keep following the evidence wherever it leads.