Answer:
There are some general rules but these are not complete.
As a general rule words tend to be stressed on the penultimate or antepenultimate syllable. (That's two or three syllables from the end.)
Some suffixes are always stressed, some have the stress on the preceding syllable. Some do not affect stress. (For example, words ending in -tion are always stressed on the syllable before this ending.)
Also many long word shave two or more stressed syllables.
Finally, English English and American English often have different stresses - for example dictionary, laboratory.