Where do I find sociology literature reviews that aren't behind a paywall?

Finding high-quality sociology literature without hitting a paywall is definitely a common hurdle, but you can bypass those blocks by focusing on open-access repositories and pre-print servers. Since you are working on urban housing gentrification, start by searching through platforms like SocArXiv or SSRN, which host academic papers that authors have uploaded for public access before or after formal publication. Another great strategy is to check the personal websites of the researchers you are interested in; many professors post PDF versions of their own articles directly on their departmental faculty pages, which are almost always free to download. If you find a title you need but can't find the full text, don't hesitate to email the corresponding author directly. Most scholars are thrilled to share their work with students and will often send you a copy within a few hours if you just send a polite, brief note mentioning that you are researching their specific findings for your seminar. Imagine you are deep in your research and you find a perfect, recent article on displacement trends in a specific city, but the journal site demands a steep fee. Instead of giving up, you could check if the author has a profile on an academic social network where they might have shared the full text, or search for the paper’s title in quotes on a search engine to see if a university repository hosts an open version. To get moving quickly, try filtering your initial searches by selecting the open-access option in database settings, or use specialized search engines that index only free scholarly content. You should also check if your library offers a proxy link to specific open-access collections that you might have overlooked in the main catalog. By shifting your search strategy toward these public repositories, you will likely find enough evidence to build a strong, well-supported argument for your paper before your Friday deadline.