Article title

Article titles should be concise and accurate allowing readers to search and link to the vast volume of information on Radiopaedia.org. 

The following points should be kept in mind when deciding on an article title:

• UK or US English is acceptable
• acronyms should only be included if well-recognized and in addition to the full name
• only the first word is capitalized unless it is a proper noun (i.e. a name)

Alternative spellings, acronyms, and more descriptive article titles can be included in the synonym section, or in some instances in the introduction. Occasionally a Terminology section will include this information if the terminology of the condition is confusing or contentious.

Capitalization

Always use sentence case when giving an article a title:

• Transient tachypnea of the newborn 

NOT

• Transient Tachypnea of the Newborn
• TRANSIENT TACHYPNEA OF THE NEWBORN

Rare exceptions to the universal use of capitalization for the initial letter of a title exist, e.g. the 'k' in k-space is always written in lowercase. Capitalization may occasionally be necessary for words other than the first word, if the title includes proper nouns, e.g. names of people, journals, organizations etc.

Acronyms

As a rule of thumb, an acronym/initialism should only be added to the title if it is better known than the fully expanded term. If there is a very well recognized acronym, it should only end up in the title in addition to the full expanded term as a parenthetical:

• Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL)

Please do not add acronyms to every article or include them when the expanded term is well known. For example:

• Transient tachypnea of the newborn

is the correct title, and not

• Transient tachypnea of the newborn (TTN)

even though TTN is an often used acronym. 

Well known acronyms such as TTN may be added to the synonyms section. Please do not add every initialism you can think of to the synonyms section unless it is well known, as many acronyms and initialisms are used for more than one condition. 

Read more about how to use acronyms. 

Singular versus plural

It is best to put the title in singular form:

• Meningioma

NOT

• Meningiomas

Special article titles

A number of recurrent situations exist which require consistent syntax. Below are some specific guidelines for frequently encountered situations. 

In many instances, the same title is needed for multiple articles because the title refers to more than one thing. This includes anatomical structures (e.g. lingula), signs (e.g. bull's eye sign) or multisystem disorders (e.g. sarcoidosis). 

For a dedicated discussion of this issue please refer to the article on disambiguation. 

Multisystem articles

When organizing subarticles from a larger parent article, please put the main topic first, followed by the subtopic in parentheses. For example, "Hodgkin lymphoma (musculoskeletal manifestations)" rather than "Musculoskeletal manifestations of Hodgkin lymphoma". 

Classification articles

Classification articles should be named using the following form:

• [classification name] classification of [condition name]

e.g.

• Mason classification of radial head fractures
• Spetzler-Martin classification of cerebral AVMs

Signs

Many signs are named using unusual terms that give no clue as to what they relate to. To make this more contextual, the context of the sign should be included in parentheses. This may be a part of the body, or a condition, or a system. Which you choose will depend on the sign, but should be as precise as possible (i.e. if a sign relates to only one condition, then the context should be the condition, whereas if the sign is more general, the context may be a region or even a system. 

e.g. 

• sunburst sign (meningioma)
• bird's beak sign (esophagus)

Staging

Staging article titles should take the following form:

• [condition name] (staging)

e.g.

• Esophageal cancer (staging)
• Necrotizing enterocolitis (staging)

Where the staging system has a name, the form is:

• [staging name] staging system for [condition name]

e.g.

• Dukes staging system for colorectal cancer

Protocol articles

Articles on a non-radiography protocol should have the modality in brackets:

• [name of protocol] (modality)

e.g.

• Brain infection protocol (MRI)

Articles on radiographic protocols take the form:

• [body part] (view name)

e.g.

• Wrist (PA view)