Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Good article review

This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia's biomedical articles are assessed against the same Good Article criteria as any other subject. They are best reviewed by multiple editors with different backgrounds. Persons with no formal medical knowledge are important to ensure the article is understandable to a general encyclopedic audience. Opinion from an individual with specialist knowledge in the topic, such as an academic recruited off-wiki, should also be welcomed.

WikiProject Medicine

Project Page
WPMED Newsletter and signup
Manual of style (medicine)
Identifying reliable sources (medicine)
List of participants
Popular pages
Assessment (Log)

How to help:
Article alerts and resources for editors
Articles for cleanup, deletion, and orphaned
Patrol recent changes and sort stubs
Requested articles

Categories:
Project
Articles by quality and importance

Current nominations:

Good article nominees

Good article reassessments

About this page

This is a centralized reference page for advising editors who are seeking advice about developing a health article to Good Article status, for publicizing articles nominated for GA review, and to coordinate reviewers once the review process is in progress.

This is also a place to plan for increased editor participation and to promote a more communal and supportive approach to Good Article development, review, and maintained. Discussions about best practices for Good Article assessment protocols are standardized here. These practices have historically been variable and participants here wish for consistent peer review.

How to nominate an article for GA

E.g. to nominate Influenza, open the corresponding talkpage, Talk:Influenza, click "edit" and paste {{subst:GAN|subtopic=Biology and medicine}} at the top of the talk page.

Attract reviewers to conduct the GA

Soon after nomination, a notification for other editors will be automatically added to this page, the main GAN page, and the WikiProject Medicine article alerts page
It is a good idea to contact any editors who have shown prior interest in the article and ask them if they are interested in contributing to the review
Paste a notification on the WikiProject Medicine talk page, which may attract an editor with specialized knowledge in that area
Consider contacting some academics who specialize in the topic to see if they would be interested in looking over the article. A good way to select such individuals is to look at the sources for the article and make a list of the corresponding emails for the authors. Indeed, an academic might be more interested to review the page if they are informed that some of their publications were referenced. Do not be afraid to contact several, the worst that can happen is they ignore you or say no. Provide a link to the article and a link to the GA review page. It may be more understandable to use the term peer review instead of good article assessment.

Who can conduct a GA assessment for medical articles?

You do not have to be a health care professional to review a medical article on Wikipedia
Medical articles need to be understandable to a general encyclopedic audience.
Articles on medical topics are assessed against the same criteria as other Wikipedia articles. This means that you are not permitted to require compliance with the Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles ("MEDMOS").
For information on what constitutes a reliable source, see the guideline on identifying reliable sources for medicine-related articles ("MEDRS"). For Good articles, all sources must meet the minimum standard for a reliable source to support the specific statement in question; they need not be the best possible sources.

Criteria

A good article is—

Well-written:

the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct; and
it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.^[1]

Verifiable with no original research:

^[2]

it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;^[3]
reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose);^[4] and
it contains no original research.

Broad in its coverage:

it addresses the main aspects of the topic;^[5] and
it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

^[6]

Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:

^[7]

media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content; and
media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.^[8]

Notes

^ Compliance with other aspects of the Manual of Style, or the Manual of Style mainpage or subpages of the guides listed, is not required for good articles.
^ Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles says, "Ideally, a reviewer will have access to all of the source material, and sufficient expertise to verify that the article reflects the content of the sources; this ideal is not often attained. At a bare minimum, check that the sources used are reliable (for example, blogs are not usually reliable sources) and that those you can access support the content of the article (for example, inline citations lead to sources which agree with what the article says) and are not plagiarized (for example, close paraphrasing of source material should only be used where appropriate, with in text attribution if necessary)."
^ Dead links are considered verifiable only if the link is not a bare url. Using consistent formatting or including every element of the bibliographic material is not required, although, in practice, enough information must be supplied that the reviewer is able to identify the source.
^ Either parenthetical references or footnotes can be used for in-line citations, but not both in the same article.
^ This requirement is significantly weaker than the "comprehensiveness" required of featured articles; it allows shorter articles, articles that do not cover every major fact or detail, and overviews of large topics.
^ Vandalism reversions, proposals to split or merge content, good faith improvements to the page (such as copy editing), and changes based on reviewers' suggestions do not apply. Nominations for articles that are unstable because of constructive editing should be placed on hold.
^ Other media, such as video and sound clips, are also covered by this criterion.
^ The presence of images is not, in itself, a requirement. However, if images (or other media) with acceptable copyright status are appropriate and readily available, then some such images should be provided.

[1] Compliance with other aspects of the Manual of Style, or the Manual of Style mainpage or subpages of the guides listed, is not required for good articles.

[2] Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles says, "Ideally, a reviewer will have access to all of the source material, and sufficient expertise to verify that the article reflects the content of the sources; this ideal is not often attained. At a bare minimum, check that the sources used are reliable (for example, blogs are not usually reliable sources) and that those you can access support the content of the article (for example, inline citations lead to sources which agree with what the article says) and are not plagiarized (for example, close paraphrasing of source material should only be used where appropriate, with in text attribution if necessary)."

[3] Dead links are considered verifiable only if the link is not a bare url. Using consistent formatting or including every element of the bibliographic material is not required, although, in practice, enough information must be supplied that the reviewer is able to identify the source.

[4] Either parenthetical references or footnotes can be used for in-line citations, but not both in the same article.

[5] This requirement is significantly weaker than the "comprehensiveness" required of featured articles; it allows shorter articles, articles that do not cover every major fact or detail, and overviews of large topics.

[6] Vandalism reversions, proposals to split or merge content, good faith improvements to the page (such as copy editing), and changes based on reviewers' suggestions do not apply. Nominations for articles that are unstable because of constructive editing should be placed on hold.

[7] Other media, such as video and sound clips, are also covered by this criterion.

[8] The presence of images is not, in itself, a requirement. However, if images (or other media) with acceptable copyright status are appropriate and readily available, then some such images should be provided.

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