Wikipedia:WikiProject Anatomy/Guidelines

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The guidelines are in the process of being developed. The following are tentative (and, as always, suggestions). To help develop/alter guidelines, please see discussion page. Please be aggressive in adding to anatomy articles; at this stage, if it comes to either adding to the articles or following the rules below, please choose to add.

Human/nonhuman anatomy

• Obviously, articles on topics such as 'leg' will comprise the anatomy of many species. But for more specific structures, especially those in Latin (e.g. extensor retinaculum), the reader is likely to assume human unless otherwise stated. Consider using 'comparative anatomy' subsection.

Terminology

• The terminology (for human articles) should be that of Terminologia Anatomica(TA), the international standard. That is, the American English version of the Latin, as specified in the English TA manual from the Federative Committee on Anatomical Terminology. (Certain words have English equivalents that are unchanged from the Latin, e.g. Flexor digiti minimi brevis). For problematic terminology, exceptions will be made. The online version of Dorland's Medical Dictionary at Mercksource.com has terms that conform--look for 'TA' after the word.
• American English should be the standard spelling in the articles. For anatomical terms for which American English differs from British English, include the British English spelling along with the American one.
• Try to include Latin (or Latinized Greek) version of the subject.
• Certain areas are not covered by TA, especially developmental anatomy related topics. Use best judgement in determining name of article.
• For "shared articles", i.e. those also covered by another project or science, be flexible with terminology, etc.
• Please make sure article doesn't exist under a synonym before creating it. Many articles still use terminology from early 1900s.

Subsections The following are possible subsection headers:

• Comparative anatomy (for discussing non-human anatomy in articles that are predominantly human-based).
• Clinical relevance (for discussing diseases and other medical associations with the structure).
• Etymology (see 'Etymology' below)
• Development (for discussing developmental biology, i.e. embryological/fetal, associated with structure).

Etymology Etymologies of certain words would be helpful. These would contain the source word (transliterated into English for Greek/Arabic/etc.) and its definition. Features that are derived from other anatomical features (that still has shared term in it) should refer the reader to the structure that provided the term, not to the original derivation. For example, the etymology section of the deltoid tuberosity should refer the reader to the deltoid muscle, not to the definition 'delta-shaped, triangular'. It should be the deltoid muscle article that refers back to Greek\Latin\Latinized Greek.