Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Clinical medicine/Writing medical articles

Proposed Manual of Style/Special Article Styles entry

I propose a new part of the Manual of Style, and more specifically of Special Article Styles, about writing medical articles. Click here to read the current essay.

It contains a number of topics related to problems that can be encountered while writing such articles. It should give these articles more uniformity and help editors face some challenges in the area, such as writing for the average reader. I long searched for such a guideline, and when I learned it didn't exist yet I started writing it here.

Please discuss below if you think this is a good idea, and give feedback on it's content.

At the moment this page is a subpage of WP:Clinical medicine, but I suggest it to be moved to "Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles". --Steven Fruitsmaak | Talk 11:40, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

scientific names immiscible with the Average Reader

They've got too many letters usually, can't be promnounced by humans (you peopole even use the wrong word for viscous -- it means thickness in a flow sense, not all them organs underneath the diaphraghm!! "Molasses is viscous, the liver is an abdominal organ."), and though there are connections with other medical terminology, the Average Reader will not know them. Since we're wriitng for that Average Reader, article titles should mean something to him/her, not merely be a collection of nonsense syllables.

So in a discussion about which of the technical medical and out of hte Average Reader's ken terms should be used for blood fat problems, the discussion is off the point. The title should be something like, Blood fat disorders. First, it makes immediately clear that we're not talking about thunder thighs (at least not precisely), that it's fat (lipid is a mysterious thing no one amonst the Average populace is too much sure of -- animal, vegetable, or mineral?), and last it's a disorder. Somethings's wrong.

The first sentences of that article should perhaps introduce the term --

lipid (means the same thing, but includes all the various forms of fat it can have in the blood), that some instances are deadly dangerous, some likely a problem, some probably merely a curiosity, and othere entirely mysterious. How does li[pid get into the blood, what are the major forms, how does it leave the blood, why do we even have any (efficiecy of energy storage of course). Absolutely normal stuff most of this. But like most things, it can go awry and we understand some of these and something about how some of them happen. These are the major problems...... And these are a few of the minor problems sometimes seen..... Overall people can reduce their chances of the bad sort by .... But some of this is hereditary (about this much and heres why it's believed to be so) and we don't know how to manage that part yet. ...

Our target reader (the Average One) will be able to take from this sort of thing much more than from an article more precise and terse, having used proper terminology. Use it by all menas, but only after taking care not to drown our Average Reader.

No bricks, please. Just flowers and well wishes. Save that tomato for the sauce. ww 20:09, 20 July 2006 (UTC)