Writing an article¶
Everything in an article body is Markdown, plus four pieces of syntax of our own. None of them need the editor: they are plain text, so they survive copy-paste, an AI draft, and a database import equally well.
Cross-references — [[…]]¶
A link from one article to another. Three forms:
| You write | It renders as | Use when |
|---|---|---|
[[264\|respiratory failure]] |
a link labelled respiratory failure | always, by preference |
[[264#workup\|the workup]] |
the same, landing on that section | the sentence is about one part of a long article |
[[respiratory-failure]] |
a link labelled respiratory-failure | quick drafting |
The first number is the article's id, and the id is the part that cannot
change. A slug can be renamed — the old one keeps resolving, because every
former slug is kept in article_slugs — but an id is permanent, so the id form
is the one that cannot rot. The label after the bar is whatever reads naturally
in the sentence: "…severe viral [[3|bronchiolitis]]…" reads as
"…severe viral bronchiolitis…", with the two words linked.
Where the id comes from: 🔗 Link an article, in the editor's toolbar. Type
a few words, click the article, and the marker is on your clipboard with the
article's own title as the label — click a section instead and you get
[[264#workup|Workup]], which opens the reader at that heading. Drafts are
marked as such in the list, because a link to one is a link to nothing yet.
The id is also in the article's URL — /articles/264 is id 264 — and on the
editor's ID/Slug/marker buttons, which copy the whole thing ready to paste.
The section part is the section's own id, and it is optional in both directions: a section renamed after the link was written leaves the reader at the top of the right article rather than nowhere, which is why a missing section is not reported as a broken link.
What happens at the far end: the link opens the article in a side pane next to what you are reading, rather than navigating away — following a reference does not lose your place. A marker pointing at an article that does not exist is reported on the editor as a broken link rather than rendering as dead text.
Inside a card or a list row the same marker is flattened to its label instead of being rendered — a link inside something that is already a link would swallow the click.
Key points — ==…==¶
Give ==IVIG within 10 days== of fever onset. — the words between the double
equals are highlighted in yellow, the way a highlighter is run over a textbook.
Use it in the high-yield view, which is what it is for: a summary where nothing is emphasised is a shorter article, not a revision aid. A few phrases a section, never a whole paragraph.
Rules the parser follows, so you can predict it:
- A highlight may not run across a line break, so one stray
==cannot swallow the rest of a section. Sodium == 140is a lab value, not an unclosed highlight: a lone marker stays the characters you typed.====is four equals signs, not an empty highlight.
The Key button in the editor toolbar wraps the selection for you.
Teaching tips — {{phrase|the tip}}¶
{{stridor|Inspiratory stridor is extrathoracic until proven otherwise}} — the
phrase is underlined in the prose, and the sentence appears where the phrase is,
on a click. It is a cross-reference minus the article: sometimes what a learner
needs is one sentence, and writing a whole article to hang it on is how a
sentence goes unwritten.
The phrase may not contain a bar or a brace; the tip may not contain braces.
Maths¶
$…$ inline and $$…$$ for a display block, rendered by KaTeX. Serum
osmolality set as plain text is a different sentence from the one you wrote.
The three views¶
Every section belongs to exactly one of them, chosen in the editor's view tabs. A view with no sections in it is not offered to the reader at all.
| Variant | What it is for |
|---|---|
| long | The full article: pathophysiology, presentation, workup, management. The body of the work, and the default for anything written before views existed. |
| short | The high-yield revision view. Tight lists of what a candidate must carry into an exam — not a summary of the long article's structure. This is where ==key points== belong. |
| clinical | What to do at the bedside, when the topic has one. Assessment, immediate management, escalation, disposition. Omit it entirely for a topic that is not acted on clinically. |
An AI draft is asked for all three (see ARTICLE_DRAFT_PROMPT); it is told
explicitly not to categorise the article or link it to questions, because both
of those are judgements an educator makes.
Linking questions to an article¶
From the article editor, under Linked questions:
- One at a time — search by the stem, choose whether the link lands on the whole article or on one section.
- A whole topic at once — choose a category, and every question filed under it (including its subtopics, unless you say otherwise) is linked in one action. The button carries the number, so you can see that "Cardiology" means 43 questions before you press it. Up to 300 in one go.
Either way these are ordinary link rows: removable one at a time, and a snapshot rather than a rule. Questions filed under that category tomorrow are not linked automatically — the alternative would silently attach new questions to an article nobody has looked at since.
The same list is editable from each question's own editor, which is the same relationship seen from the other end.
Linking cards to a question, and to an article¶
Cards go the other way round: the link is made from the card, in the deck browser, and read from the question's end only.
- Open Cards, then the deck, then the ⛓ control on a card.
- Search a question by its stem, or an article by its title, and link it.
What a learner then sees: under the correct answer, beside the ▤ chips for topic reading, a ▦ chip naming the deck — one chip per deck however many of its cards are tied to that question, because three doors to the same room is one door too many. The same chips appear in the answer review of a finished attempt.
Why only from the card's side: a card that listed the questions it belongs to would hand a learner revising the deck the shape of the exam, and the back of a card is an answer.
A deck nobody shared is invisible. Cards generated from an article land in
a private deck called Cards: