get_paper_abstract

Retrieve complete abstracts for academic papers using OpenAlex IDs to support detailed research analysis and paper evaluation.

Instructions

Get the full abstract for a specific paper.

Args: paper_id: The OpenAlex paper ID (from search_papers results)

Returns: The paper's abstract text with title and metadata

Input Schema

TableJSON Schema

Name	Required	Description	Default
`paper_id`	Yes

Implementation Reference

src/server.py:47-71 (handler)

Primary MCP tool handler for 'get_paper_abstract'. Fetches paper by ID using PaperFetcher, extracts abstract with helper method, formats and returns structured response including title, authors, year, citations, and full abstract text.

@mcp.tool()
def get_paper_abstract(paper_id: str) -> str:
    """
    Get the full abstract for a specific paper.

    Args:
        paper_id: The OpenAlex paper ID (from search_papers results)

    Returns:
        The paper's abstract text with title and metadata
    """
    paper = fetcher.fetch_paper_by_id(paper_id)

    if "error" in paper:
        return paper["error"]

    abstract_text = fetcher.get_paper_abstract(paper)

    result = f"**{paper['title']}**\n"
    result += f"Authors: {paper['authors']}\n"
    result += f"Year: {paper['publication_year']}\n"
    result += f"Citations: {paper['cited_by_count']}\n\n"
    result += f"**Abstract:**\n{abstract_text}\n"

    return result

src/tools/paper_fetcher.py:117-140 (helper)

Supporting helper method in PaperFetcher class that reconstructs the paper's abstract from OpenAlex's inverted index format (word positions) into readable plain text.

def get_paper_abstract(self, paper_data: Dict) -> str:
    """
    Convert OpenAlex inverted index abstract to readable text.

    Args:
        paper_data: Paper dictionary containing abstract in inverted index format

    Returns:
        Readable abstract text
    """
    inverted_index = paper_data.get("abstract")

    if not inverted_index:
        return "No abstract available"

    word_positions = []
    for word, positions in inverted_index.items():
        for pos in positions:
            word_positions.append((pos, word))

    word_positions.sort(key=lambda x: x[0])
    abstract = " ".join([word for _, word in word_positions])

    return abstract

src/server.py:47-47 (registration)
The @mcp.tool() decorator registers the get_paper_abstract function as an MCP tool.
```
@mcp.tool()
```
src/tools/paper_fetcher.py:82-82 (helper)
Helper method that fetches detailed paper data from OpenAlex API by ID, which is used by the tool handler to retrieve paper metadata before extracting the abstract.
```
def fetch_paper_by_id(self, paper_id: str) -> Dict:
```

ResearchMCP