Merging duplicate articles

Merging duplicated articles is sometimes necessary and the same topic is occasionally covered under slightly different titles (e.g. oesophageal cancer and esophageal cancer). The aim of merging is to end up with one detailed article which is linked to by all other appropriate articles. The following steps are required to merge articles A and B:

1. chose the more complete of the two articles (lets say A is more complete)
2. edit A and add content from B maintaining appropriate article structure (see articles)
3. transfer appropriate illustrating cases from B to A (the easiest way to do this is to use the flag) 
4. transfer references from B to A (you will probably need to change the ref numbers)
5. add the title of B to the synonyms of A (this will preserve links from articles which linked to B)
6. also add any synonyms of B to A
7. save A and make sure you are happy
8. delete B - if you do not have the appropriate privileges to delete the article, contact [email protected] and let us know which article you have merged. 

Exceptions

There are a few occasions where articles with similar names or covering similar topics should not be merged. Examples include: 

• classification or staging articles: sometimes having such an article as a stand alone article (rather than being included in a longer topic) is useful, especially as there may be multiple classification systems. 
• articles on conditions that affect multiple systems