Most uni level essays don't require physical book sources nowadays.
Like this one requires about 6+ sources that are scholarly articles, and 3+ sources that are regular online content.

I suppose.
You can find plenty of papers in Google Scholar... and other more specific search engines of course.

The sad thing is many of the scholar paper hosting sites aren't available to the public. So like, to get access we have to go through the uni online library login and connect to the databases. Which makes it a pain to hunt for papers @.@ it's my least favorite part of essay writing, the source gathering...

But at least can you access for free?
I mean, I suppose some of those sites may require membership, don't they?

huh really? i had no idea. then again, i haven't written any essays in years.

Yeah through the uni system you can access most stuff for free because the uni has memberships. Elsewise each of the journal hosting websites requires a stupidly expensive fee to read/download articles DDD:

I just always think it's a dumb system to segregate academic papers like this :(
It makes it near impossible to research unless you're affiliated with a school/institution D:

i see. well either way, i wish you all the luck in writing your essay lol. glad i don't have to do those. 8u

It is the same in Science.
Some articles are public domain, but others require membership to this or that, so unless you are into serious investigation in an university it's quite likely you will never lay eyes on them.

yeah i'm not surprised. after all, if its an article you're learning from or need to learn from, if the school doesn't have permissions, how would you learn? its probably easier to read a lot of things, as long as you're attending a school that has permissions.

I personally still like reading some stuff sometimes.
For example when something is mentioned in the press - because the press rarely get the facts straight - I like checking the source.
Sometimes it's not avaliable at all, sometimes you can at least read the excerpt.