The Work Object

Work objects represent scholarly papers ingested from preprint servers and publishers. They include core metadata, versions, and expandable content such as sections, blocks, assets, and citations. More details on those later in the docs.

This expandable content has been normalized by parsing JATS XML into structured JSON. Sections, paragraphs, figures, tables, and references are extracted and categorized into a consistent schema, enabling reconstruction of the paper’s structure and content programmatically.

Each work has a stable public_id and supports multiple versions as new versions of preprints are released, or papers become published. Use the expand parameter to include full content when needed.

This is the standard structure of the core Work Object:

THE WORK OBJECT

{
   "public_id":"medrxiv:2025.08.07.25333034",
   "title":"Example Research Paper Title",
   "abstract":"This is an example abstract of the research paper...",
   "ids":{
      "doi":"10.1101/2025.08.07.25333034",
      "pmid":null,
      "pmcid":null,
      "arxiv_id":null,
      "biorxiv_id":null,
      "medrxiv_id":"2025.08.07.25333034",
      "openalex_id":null
   },
   "landing_url":"https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.07.25333034v1",
   "is_open_access":true,
   "best_license":"CC-BY-4.0",
   "first_published_at":"2025-08-07T00:00:00.000Z",
   "latest_released_at":"2025-08-07T00:00:00.000Z",
   "created_at":"2025-01-15T10:30:00.000Z",
   "updated_at":"2025-01-15T10:30:00.000Z",
   "versions":Versions[],
   "_links":{
      "self":"/v1/work/medrxiv:2025.08.07.25333034",
      "versions":"/v1/work/medrxiv:2025.08.07.25333034/versions",
      "latest_version":"/v1/work/medrxiv:2025.08.07.25333034/versions/latest"
   },
   
   
   // The following items are only returned if the user specifies 
   // so with the use of the `expand` query parameter:
   
   "sections":Sections[], // Optional, with ?expand=sections
   "blocks":Blocks[], // Optional, with ?expand=blocks
   "assets":Assets[], // Optional, with ?expand=assets
   "citations":Citations[] // Optional, with ?expand=citations
}

It is returned as a response by the Core Work Routes, explained in the next section.