this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2026
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Science Memes
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Obligatory response that this is highly dependent upon the field and your experience. Of the four authors I contacted for copies to their paper in my tenure as a child protection caseworker, none of them even replied to me let alone gave me a copy of their paper. I don’t know if it was because of the fields (psychology and social science) or because I emailed them from my .gov.au email but this advice doesn’t always hold true.
I'd definitely avoid using the gov email address. This may be another difference between my field and what you are doing, but if a .gov emailed me asking for my work I'd redirect them to my security manager, expecting it to be one of those "oops you got phished, be more careful!" type of cyber training emails. I'd also offer that you might look up the person you're emailing; I've published under at least 2 different student email addresses that I no longer have access to. If you happen to know my name you'll find my current contact info pretty quickly on google, but if you email gust@undergrad.edu that email is going straight into the void