WikiJournalClub:Conventions
Loads (loads!) of people will be editing these pages, and it's always good to stick to conventions.
Article Titles
Either the trial's common abbreviation (eg, AFFIRM, CORTICUS, NICE SUGAR), a paraphrase of the journal article title, or if unavoidable, the full journal article title. Redirects are helpful.
If you are also mentioning the year the study is published in the text, add the year after the trial's common abbreviation in parentheses, i.e. "AFFIRM trial (2002)" or "The French Trial (2002)".
Bulleted Lists
They generally look good, but if your list only has one item, then just make it into a paragraph. So usually the Clinical Question and Bottom Line sections should not have a bullet.
Abbreviations
Abbreviations are always acceptable for terms that all readers can be reasonably expected to be familiar with: EF, CHF, NYHA, etc. A complete list is at WikiJournalClub:Abbreviations.
Statistics
Statistics can be hard for non-statisticians (like the vast majority of the authors on this site). From an outsider's perspective, statistics can seem like a hard science, but there's really a lot of wiggle room: which test to use to calculate P values, whether to use odds or relative risks, etc. Some frequently encountered topics:
- WikiJournalClub:Table 1 P value
- Believe it or not, an RCT's "table 1" or "baseline characteristics" table shouldn't have P values!
Dos and don'ts
| Do | Like this | Not like this |
|---|---|---|
| Use leading zeroes | 0.78 | .78 |
| Use 'vs.' | vs. | vs or v |
| Use a capital P | P-value | p-value |
| Use semicolons between stats | RR 0.33; 95% CI 0.14-0.58; P<0.01 | RR 0.33, 95% CI 0.14-0.58, P<0.01 |
| Use 'P=NS' for non-significant P-values | P=NS | P not significant |
Infoboxes
You don't need to put it in yourself, but eventually your article will start with an infobox, that {{info}} stuff you may have noticed at the top of other pages. Though it's ugly, it's incredibly useful. See the Default journal article page for usage.
Dos and don'ts
| Do | Like this | Not like this |
|---|---|---|
| Format the author correctly | author=John SA, et al (note comma placement and that et al doesn't have a period!) | author=John, SA et al |
Capitalization
| Do | Don't | |
|---|---|---|
| Title Case | Inclusion Criteria | Inclusion criteria |
Quotes
Rarely are quotes required, even if you think they're conveying something weird from a manuscript. Just drop them.
Units
- Generally prefer all lowercase units unless doing so would be ambiguous. Examples:
- ml/kg (nobody would mistake this for anything other than milliliters)
- L/min (in "l/min" that "L" looks like a one)
- Where possible, include both the conventional and SI units
Empty sections
The Default journal article page has many sections that could potentially be included in each article. They're there so you don't have to remember to include them. But by all means, please remove empty sections if you're not using them. The Criticisms, External Links, and References sections are particularly prone to being left in articles even when they don't have any content, and it looks sloppy.
Announcing your changes
Users of the Journal Club for iPhone app get routine updates from this website and it's nice to keep them apprised of the recent updates. This is displayed to mobile app users in More > Recent Updates. That page is populated by Feed:Recent Updates, so if you've added a trial summary or made a significant change to an existing summary, then you should announce the change over there. More details are at Feed talk:Recent Updates.