User:Indiacox/Evaluate an Article

Ligand field theory
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== Ligand field theory is fundamental to understanding metal ligand bonding, and thus it is important to have a strong wikipedia page for it. However, my preliminary impression of the page could benefit from better illustrations of what metal ligand orbital overlap would look like to make CFT information applicable beyond systems discussed in the article. It would also be beneficial to include MO diagrams of more types of complexes to illustrate the effect of different ligands on splitting. ==

(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

== This article successfully articulates what ligand field theory is and provides brief historical for its development. The historical section could benefit from more citations (because it appears all information is coming from one source) but the amount of text devoted to historical context seems appropriate given that ligand field theory should predominately cover how the theory can be used (as opposed to the historical context on how it was developed). The discussion of bonding and of high and low spin complexes is also complete and well articulated. Given all of this, the biggest issues with this article is not with any of the content that is included, but with information that is not included. The addition of MO diagrams to support how different ligands affect d orbital splitting would be extremely helpful (to show reasoning behind why pi acceptors will have larger splitting and why pi donors will have smaller splitting). Additionally better illustration of what bonding and antibonding orbitals look like (in addition to illustration of salcs) would be beneficial in understanding what LFT is actually modeling. Overall, the article is also lacking diverse citations (there should be more than 5 unique sources) and should refer to examples of how LFT has been used to explain concepts in scientific literature. ==

(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)