User:Ksgdny/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Francis Bacon

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because it directly relates to my class topic, which is the History of Science from the Scientific Revolution. Francis Bacon matters because he was a philosopher active in the late 16th century until the early 17th century who's work was integral to the Scientific Revolution. My preliminary impression of the article is that it is a biography of Francis Bacon and why he is important.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section


 * The first paragraph of the lead article gives a concise overview of who Francis Bacon was (full name, birthdate, alias) and why he is important.
 * The lead section does provide readers with a brief synopsis of Francis Bacon which are elaborated on in the body of the article.
 * For a lead section, it is very detailed, but Francis Bacon has a long history so all the main points of the article must be mentioned in the lead.

Content


 * This article has information from many, many centuries, with sources that span from 1619 until 2021, and it would seem that there has been chats on the talk page from late 2022. So I would assess that the page is indeed, up to date.
 * Majority of the content found in the article is relevant; however, I do believe the the skepticism regarding his sexuality and Shakespearean authorship could be removed, considering both are skepticism and are not rooted in fact but personal opinion and speculation. Although this information is interesting to read, it doesn't really add much to the overall bibliography of who Francis Bacon was.
 * This article does not represent any of Wikipedia's equity gaps because Francis Bacon was a white Englishman. Although the article suggests that he could be homosexual, there is no strong evidence for this claim.

Tone and Balance


 * The article remains neutral throughout it's entirety because it presents not only good aspects of Francis Bacon, but it also includes controversial topics such as the debate on his sexuality, Shakespearean authorship, marriage to a 13-year-old when he was 45, and his public disgrace.

Sources and References


 * This article has 121 sources spanning from 1619 to 2021 and each paragraph has a lot of sources cited, but there are a few paragraphs in a few sections which lack citations or state that a citation is needed.

Organization and Writing Quality


 * The article is very well organized because it begins with his biography, introduces his philosophy and works, goes into detail about his influence and legacy, briefly touches on historical debates related to Bacon, and then gives a list of his bibliography.
 * The article is also well written and I did not find any spelling or grammatical errors, save for the spelling of 'skeptical,' which is written as 'sceptical' throughout the article, but that topic was address in the Talk section and was left unchanged. This is because 'sceptical' is proper in the UK, while 'skeptical' is proper in the US.

Images and Media


 * All of the images and media included in the article are relevant to the topic and are all labelled properly.

Talk Page


 * As I mentioned in the Organization and Writing Quality portion of this review, I noticed a fellow reader was also confused by the spelling of 'sceptical,' but it was address by another member.
 * Members also discussed the section of Bacon's sexuality, and agreed that there needed to a clarification for the terms they used, because in today's terms, Paedophilia is associated with a sexual attraction towards children and not homosexuality.
 * I also thought it was interesting that a member was debating his cause of death, but I do not know anything about his death to provide a rebuttal.

Overall Impressions


 * Considering that I personally do not know much about Francis Bacon other than he contributed to the Scientific Revolution, I cannot make any serious notes about the validity of the information presented in this article.
 * The article was organized nicely and includes a lot of information regarding who Francis Bacon was and what he contributed to the field of science.