Work Types Overview

All work type values in OpenAlex

Work types classify the form of a scholarly document. Each work has exactly one type.

Values

ID	Description
article	Original, citable research usually in a journal, including full research papers, brief communications, technical notes, and full-paper case reports.
book	A scholarly book published as a complete, standalone volume, such as a monograph or authored or edited volume.
book-chapter	A single chapter or section within a book, such as a contributed chapter in an edited volume, sometimes presenting original research.
book-review	An evaluation of one book and its significance, such as a book review or a review essay focused on a single book, usually published in a journal’s book-review section.
conference-abstract	A standalone abstract for a conference or symposium presentation, published without the accompanying full paper, such as a meeting abstract, poster abstract, or abstract-only proceedings record.
conference-paper	A complete paper delivered at a conference, symposium, or meeting and usually appearing in the published proceedings, including proceedings papers and review talks given at a conference.
data-paper	A peer-reviewed paper written mainly to describe a dataset, such as a data descriptor or data article, rather than to analyze it.
dataset	The deposited data artifact itself, such as a dataset, data collection, or database record, typically with its own DOI, not a paper about the data.
dissertation	A document submitted in completion of an academic degree or professional qualification, such as a PhD or master’s thesis or dissertation.
editorial	A piece expressing the views of an individual, group, or organization on a broad topic rather than on one specific work, such as an editorial, commentary, interview, or research highlight.
erratum	A journal-issued fix for mistakes in a published article, such as an erratum, corrigendum, or publisher correction, referencing the article it corrects.
letter	A short message sent by readers to a journal’s editor responding to previously published material, such as a letter to the editor, reply, or reader comment.
libguides	A library research guide (LibGuides) curated by librarians to point users toward resources on a topic or course.
other	A catch-all for works that fit no other type, such as news items, obituaries, full journal issues, and non-scholarly repository media (photographs, video, audio).
paratext	Records that package or frame a publication rather than carry its content, such as covers, title pages, tables of contents, and author guidelines.
peer-review	A peer review or report about a single other work, rather than a survey of many, such as an open peer review, referee report, or reviewer report.
preprint	An article whose primary location is a preprint repository such as arXiv, bioRxiv, medRxiv, SSRN, or Research Square.
reference-entry	A self-contained entry within a reference work, such as an encyclopedia article, dictionary entry, or handbook entry.
report	A technical report or working paper issued outside the journal system by an institution, agency, or company, such as a technical report, white paper, or government report.
retraction	A notice that formally withdraws an earlier work and explains why, with a reference to the work being retracted.
review	A journal article that summarizes and evaluates the existing research on a topic without reporting new findings, such as a literature review, systematic review, or meta-analysis.
software	A research software package or code released as a citable artifact, such as deposited code or a tagged software release with its own identifier, not a paper about it.
software-paper	A peer-reviewed paper written mainly to describe research software, such as a software article or descriptor, rather than to report research results.
standard	A formal standard or technical specification from a Standards Development Organization (SDO) or consortium, such as an ISO, IEEE, or W3C standard.
supplementary-materials	Supporting materials accompanying a primary work, usually a journal article, such as supporting-information files, supplementary figures, tables, or appendices.

(The display name for each type is the same as its ID.)

Use these values with the type filter on works: filter=type:article

book-review, conference-abstract, conference-paper, data-paper, and software-paper are newly added to the vocabulary. They are being rolled out, so coverage is currently low or zero and they may not yet appear under works?group_by=type.

How types are assigned

Every work gets exactly one type. OpenAlex assigns it by mapping the type reported by the work’s source — Crossref’s type, DataCite’s resourceType, PubMed’s publication type, etc. — onto the OpenAlex vocabulary above, then applying a set of internal heuristics (for example, titles like “Index”, “Cover Picture”, or a bare journal name are classified as paratext). Approved curations can override the assigned type for an individual work.

Paratext

paratext covers material that is part of a publication but not the scholarly content itself — front matter, back matter, indexes, covers, mastheads, and advertisements. Filter for it with filter=type:paratext.

The separate boolean field is_paratext is deprecated. It is now derived directly from type (it is true exactly when type is paratext) and carries no additional information. Use filter=type:paratext instead of filter=is_paratext:true. is_paratext remains available for backward compatibility but may be removed in a future release.