Orthopaedic Surgery/Note To Authors

First of all, a warm welcome to Orthopaedic Surgery!

You can become one of the authors of this book simply by contributing useful content on Orthopaedic Surgery.

We are in the process of posting advice for authors in this page. Please feel free to add your own, if any.

Before you jump onto the bandwagon, there are a few places you could go visiting. To become an author of this module it is neither necessary nor essential to read through all the articles. But it is certainly recommended to do so in order to develop a proper perspective of the environment in which you are going to work and contribute.

The Wiki Process

 * Learn what a Wiki is.
 * What is Collaborative writing?
 * Read about Wikipedia and Wikibooks and visit Wikipedia and Wikibooks.
 * Who writes Wikipedia?
 * A little about GFDL.
 * Content in Wikibooks is free in both Free as in beer and Free as in speech ways. It is Open content
 * Before you rush in, read also about some criticism that the projects have faced.

The Starting Point
You have decided to be an author but do not know where to start off. Visit the Sandbox and experiment to your heartful. Learn about how to edit and how to start a new page. Visit the Community Portal and Reading room to interact with other contributors.

Basic Principles
Our advice over would be very simple. We borrow our principles from the foundation on which Wikipedia was based upon. The simplified ruleset of wikipedia is listed for those of you who are interested.

Read Jimbo Wales' principles to be clear about who is the last authority on all matters!!
 * BE BOLD! in editing and contributing.[[Image:be bold ortho.png|200px|right]]
 * Be civil to other users at all times. It is the hallmark of a successful collaborative process.
 * Neutral point of view (NPOV). This will help us in producing a book that is applicable and acceptable to most of us.
 * Verifiability. Articles that cite a reputable source are encouraged and should be the order of the day for a medical textbook.
 * Assume good faith. Consider other contributors to be thinking rational beings who are trying to contribute positively to building this book.
 * Respect copyright. No Plagiarism is permitted. If your contribution violates copyright then it will be mercilessly edited and possibly removed. In addition you must be comfortable with GFDL.
 * Decent edit summaries are essential for collaborating. If one has to respect the edit of another contributor, a logical reason for the edit makes things easy to understand.
 * No personal attacks are allowed on these pages. Instead explain in clear terms what someone did wrong. Avoid labelling people.
 * Be graceful: Be liberal in what you accept, be conservative in what you do. Be polite, solid and straightforward.
 * No original research, please.
 * Signing. It helps others to associate a name with a contribution.
 * Use the preview button; to prevent edit conflicts.
 * Discuss potential issues in the talk pages.
 * Ignore all rules. If rules are a hindrance, forget about them!!

Last but not the least, this must be foremost in the mind of any author or reader of this textbook. WIKIBOOKS DOES NOT GIVE MEDICAL ADVICE Also go through the General disclaimer

Our Principles
There are few issues to consider before you move ahead. Lets not call them rules ...but guidelines, so that even if we are not moving together, we are at least making progress in the same direction and towards one destination.

Goals

 * 1) To develop a Textbook of Orthopaedic Surgery.
 * 2) To continuously improvise on the contents and structure of this textbook.
 * 3) To make it readable and presentable to the intended audience.

Guidelines

 * 1) To start with all pages, new or old, must follow the new Naming policy of wikibooks. They must be in the format - Orthopaedic Surgery/New Page. Please avoid using The format Orthopaedic Surgery/Chapter Name/Page Name for two reasons. One it makes the Page name long and the other is because we have common topics in Orthopaedic Surgery. The former naming format allows us to list the same topic under numerous headings without any repeatations.
 * 2) Find a topic to write on. There is already a chapter layout and many topics listed. See if your topic fits into one of them. Don't worry if it does not! You can always create a new page and add it to the appropriate chapter.
 * 3) As far as possible cite references for your article. That will make it more authentic. Don't worry if you can't. Someone in the community will do it for you.
 * 4) Do not copy articles verbatim from elsewhere. Derive material from them if necessary. Explain issues in your own words. Don't worry if it doesn't sound too good. We will help you in improvising on the article.
 * 5) The top of every page carries two navigation headings. One carries links to the chapters and the other maintains the continuity between the pages on the book. Please do not remove them. If you create a new page please add them to the top by typing and note that you have to replace Chapter Name with the name of the chapter to which the page belongs:
 * 1) Add images, figures and tables as necessary. We want a colorful book not a dull and dry book. Please make sure that the images you add to the book are released or available under the GFDL licence.