User:MitskiFan/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Giovanni Boccaccio

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I chose this biographical article because we read from Boccaccio in class, and thus far, it has been my favorite reading. Giovanni Boccaccio matters because his works are frequently studied when evaluating the Italian Renaissance, and his writings and humanist beliefs influenced Italian literature and humanism as a whole, and what humanism accomplished. My preliminary impression was that the article was incredibly detailed, the lead section did a good job at summarizing everything, and that some parts seemed slightly speculative.

Evaluate the article
(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.)

Overall, this was an acceptable article that provided very useful information—especially to those looking to briefly discover who Boccaccio was; however, it is not perfect, and it could be bettered in several respects.

The leading section is very clear and gives a very accurate portrayal both of Boccaccio and of the article one him. The one critique is that it does not explicitly cover the major sections of the article listed; however, the major sections are just different parts of Boccaccio’s life, and it does adequately cover the most important parts about him. Similarly, while the overall content of this article is relevant and informative, there are some problems with the tone and balance of the article. Mostly, everything presented is neutral, but there are several sentences that seem speculative about as to Boccaccio’s motivations and actions, such as why his writing style changed. The article states why with too much certainty despite there being multiple possible explanations, and the link for this statement does not work. On that note, the references are not the best. There are two links that one cannot access, and after checking for the source of a statement in a book, I noticed that the wording was almost exactly the same as the original source material, just with the order loosely changed around but distinct phrases were kept exact. The organization is alright for the most part as it’s mostly chronological. There are two parts that could be improved though. First, the first three sentences of the last paragraph are very awkwardly placed. They do not follow the chronological order nor fully connect with the recounting of Boccaccio’s death, so it would make most sense to include this earlier when is appropriate. Second, there is one paragraph that is noticeable larger than all others and could be split into several smaller paragraphs that are more focused. The images are very well placed and appealing. The talk page discussion really captured most of the problems I encountered. It is mainly filled with writers corrected misinformation and questioning whether some pieces of evidence were true. This makes sense because since Boccaccio lived so long ago, it is very hard to verify the validity of information about him.

Overall, this is an acceptable article. It probably is not a hundred percent accurate, but presents a very clear chronology of the life of Boccaccio and enough accessible links to provide more information for curious readers.