Articles

Last revised by Joachim Feger on 15 Jan 2024

Articles form the encyclopedic component of Radiopaedia.org and are collaborative efforts to create atomic reference articles for anything related to the practice of radiology. Unlike a textbook, journal publication or a written encyclopedia, Radiopaedia.org articles allow you and other users to expand, modify and update content as time passes. Thus, over time, our articles and content get better and better.

Articles can act as a basic reporting workstation reference or as a leading point to other published journal articles or textbooks as well as selected submitted cases on that topic (through its linked reference list at the bottom or attached case list on the right).

Articles are, in essence, collaborative reference works about a particular topic. For example:

Although the scope of Radiopaedia is ever enlarging, we do not seek to become another Wikipedia. As such, article topics should be in some way radiology-related. As a rule of thumb, each article should link to existing articles and the relevance to the radiologist should be emphasized. Some topics, such as basic science topics, although worthy in and of themselves, may not be accepted for publication. We strongly suggest that you first contribute to existing articles before authoring a new article and, prior to doing so, reach out to the editors by visiting radiopaedia.org/community.

Two achievements on your profile page relate to your contributions to Radiopaedia articles; "Author" and "Contributor". 

The "Author" achievement represents how many new articles you have created. 

The "Contributor" achievement, on the other hand, represents how many articles you have contributed to. See below for a note about how these values have been calculated. 

In both instances, the contributions need to be reviewed and approved by our editorial board. 

The best way to get started is to edit an existing article in order to get accustomed with the Radiopaedia style. You can also play in our sandbox (test page) to try different headings, linking etc.

Editing an article

Editing an article is extremely simple. Just log in, click edit article (top of right-hand side column) and off you go.

The best way to get to grips with the basics is to go through the Editing Radiopaedia Articles Learning Pathway. It is not long and gives you an excellent introduction to the most important concepts needed to correctly contribute. A couple of videos are also available to help you (see below). 

It is also worth reviewing the anatomy of an article to come to terms with the standard components of an article. At the bottom of the page, in the related articles section, much more information is available.

Creating an article

Creating a new article is a little more advanced, but not difficult. Click articles in the Radiopaedia header and then create new article (right above the search field).

However, in addition to some basic knowledge of the Radiopaedia style, you should have an understanding of the topic you want to write about and be familiar with the respective structure of the article category you are writing in. We also have a few basic requirements for a new article in terms of content, structure and references:

  • should adequately reflect the topic or at least one or two highlights of it

  • should not contain any wrong or doubtful statements

  • should include a definition of the topic within the introduction

New articles that fall under a category with specified main headings within the article structure (e.g. standard, anatomy, interventional etc.) should include the following:

  • at least 3 appropriate references as specified under: References

  • note: listing articles/textbooks or book chapters in the reference section is not sufficient, the cited text within the article should be appropriately linked using a superscript reference!

You can also watch the following short videos to give you a quick introduction, but keep in mind that they were produced some time ago and some of the site's functionality has changed somewhat changed. 

Because achievements were only introduced in early 2018 and the site has undergone many changes over the years to how changes are represented and kept track of it has not been possible to perfectly capture these metrics for historical edits. Previously each profile had an "Edits" number which represented a mixture of edits to cases and articles and for some time counted small changes in close succession (e.g. Save and continue) as individual edits. The result is that the value of the "Contributor" achievement for older users will be an estimate. 

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