
Semantic Scholar
Search and retrieve research paper metadata via Semantic Scholar API
What You Can Do
Search academic papers by keywords, title, or topic; retrieve detailed metadata including abstracts, citations, and publication details; look up specific papers using DOI, arXiv ID, or Semantic Scholar ID; explore an author's complete publication history; and fetch incoming and outgoing citation networks. You can perform bulk searches, match papers by exact title, and access comprehensive research literature data without requiring API authentication for basic queries.
Features
find papers across the academic graph using Boolean operators and filters
retrieve metadata using DOI, arXiv ID, Semantic Scholar ID, or exact title match
view papers that cite a given paper and papers referenced by it
retrieve all papers published by a specific author with metadata
fetch multiple papers at once for efficient bulk queries
customize response fields to get only the data you need (abstract, venue, year, etc.)
access basic API functionality without registration or API keys
use bulk search endpoint for complex, filtered queries across large datasets
Example Output
Search for papers on neural networks:
Paper 1: "Attention Is All You Need"
- Year: 2017
- Venue: NeurIPS
- Citations: 87,000+
- Abstract: [Retrieved abstract]
- DOI: 10.5555/3295222
Paper 2: "Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition"
- Year: 2015
- Venue: CVPR
- Citations: 110,000+
- Authors: Kaiming He, Xiangyu Zhang, ...
Look up citations for a specific paper:
Papers citing "BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers":
- 45,230 total citations
- Top recent papers: [List with metadata]
- Citation breakdown by year: 2019-2024
Retrieve author publication list:
Author: Yann LeCun
- Total papers: 742
- H-index: 231
- Recent papers with citation counts and venues
What's Included
- SKILL.md instruction file with API endpoints, field selection guide, and query examples:
- cURL command templates for paper search, author lookup, and citation retrieval:
- Boolean search syntax reference for advanced filtering:
- Field selection checklists for optimizing API response payloads:
- Rate limiting and authentication upgrade guidance for high-volume use:
Who It's For
- Academic researchers — finding related work, exploring citation networks, and tracking paper impact
- Literature review specialists — conducting systematic searches across research databases and domains
- Graduate students — discovering papers for thesis research and understanding publication landscapes
- Science journalists — researching author backgrounds, citation influence, and trending research topics
- Research librarians — supporting patron queries and building curated paper collections
Best For
- Comprehensive paper searches across disciplines and publication years
- Citation impact analysis and tracking influential papers in a field
- Author publication history and collaboration network exploration
- Building reading lists and conducting systematic literature reviews
- Metadata retrieval for papers identified by DOI, arXiv ID, or title







