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______________________________________________________________________________

Memorandum:
Date: February 9, 2016
To: Lehua Ledbetter
From: Carlie Russell
Subject: Rhetorical Analysis of Wikipedia
Everyone has either heard of or used the Wikipedia page as a
quick easy way to get information. However, because Wikipedia is a
public page, anyone who wants to do so can make changes, additions,
revisions and edits to any page of their choosing. That being said, most
of the time people will go out of their way to create a valid description
of specific words, people, places etc. Then there are other times where
people will go into this site and change things around to confuse
people or give them misguided and incorrect information.

Overview:
1)
2)
3)
4)

Designated Audience
Context
Purpose
Conclusions

Designated Audience:
36% of online American adults consult Wikipedia; It is
particularly popular with the well educated and current college-age
students (pewinternet). Seems like a shocking low statistic, however
this is from an article in 2007. The formal launch of this website was

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on the 15th of January in 2001 (Wikipedia). Between 2007 and 2011 the
percent of people that use Wikipedia jumped up to 53%(poynter). The
original mission of the resource was to be a multilingual, web-base,
free content encyclopedia project (poynter). Who uses this valuable
resource though? Its been shown that the strongest predictor of the
use of Wikipedia is ones education level (poynter). 69% of the users of
Wikipedia have at least a college degree where only 31% do not
(poynter). Being a college student, I know how great of a resource
Wikipedia can be because it can essentially give you the answer to
almost any question you have. Any homework questions you cant
figure out, you can go to Wikipedia and do research on the topic thats
giving you trouble. Even if you simply dont know the definition of a
specific word, most of the time the correct definition will be right there
once you look it up. Now, even when you google the definition of a
concept or word, the definition will come up as a search result. Under
these results are always citations and most of the time the definitions
come from Wikipedia.

Context:
Wikipedia is a useful tool for a variety of research needs. In its
most basic form Wikipedia does exactly as its name describes and
serves as an online encyclopedia we here anyone can research
information about virtually everything. For those in school ranging
from primary education all the way to higher education. It can
breakdown more difficult concepts into a more user friendly and
readable context as opposed to sorting through the jargon of research
articles and textbooks. Wikipedia benefits those trying to gain
knowledge as well as those trying to impart some of their own. For
researchers and theorists, it is an outlet to let the world know about
their area of expertise and give the most current information possible.
This platform lends itself to user-friendly updates of scientific
breakthroughs and world news, just to name a few, in a way accessible
to the general public. The hyperlink set up of Wikipedia lends its self
to natural exploration for many users who could start be researching
WWI and end up reading about the origins of O Canada National
Anthem. This exploration allows the user to learn about topics they
may never have even considered looking into before. In a world where
everyone is so self involved and social media obsessed, less focus falls
on learning about past and the world around them and more about the
latest trends and Buzzfeed articles. It is important to create a vein of

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knowledge exploration that adapts to the current user and Wikipedia

accomplishes this through its online access and phone applications.

Cultural Relevance:
Wikipedia plays a huge role in the culture of higher education
participants and workers. Many kids in all levels of grade school as well
as college use Wikipedia as a main
resource of getting easy information.
People that grew up in this day in
age have relied heavily on the
simplicity and convenience of the internet
and its capabilities. This search engine
displays a
lot of logos. Logos is a means of logic and
reasoning which correlate very much to factual
information. When people choose to use
Wikipedia over any other page, theyre looking
for correct information. They dont want to
find something that will hurt them or be
incorrect when youre looking for a reference.
Whether or not the website displays any sort
of
ethos is debatable. Ethos has more to do
with credibility as well as trust. The tricky part about Wikipedia, as I
have said before, is that the website is open to public to edit, revise
and change the information for each page If they feel the need. This
leaves some room for a lack of trust because someone could go and
sabotage information that youre using for a paper or project. Using
Wikipedia for papers and assignments is risky and most schools,
professors and teachers have gone out of their way to make a point of
telling people not to use this website for educational reasons, even
though those are the types of people that have been shown to use it
most.

Conclusions:
Wikipedia is relevant and still a growing internet resource. People
always need to find easy information and this search engine
specifically is easy enough for people to access quickly and easily. The
goal of the search engine was to provide free and convenient
information that people would originally have to pay for. Before

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Wikipedia most people had an encyclopedia in their house so that they

could look up the specific terms they needed at a convenient time. The
current generation is so internet and media based that creating a
resource like this is almost a staple in our culture. Every answer to any
question you may have can almost always be found on the internet.
Wikipedia is just one of many examples of how the internet has
furthered our knowledge and personal understanding of how the world
works.

Bibliography:
(n.d.). Retrieved February 02, 2016, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Wikipedia
Pew Report: Who uses Wikipedia? (2011). Retrieved February 02, 2016,
from http://www.poynter.org/2011/pew-report-who-useswikipedia/114681/
Wikipedia users. (2007). Retrieved February 04, 2016, from
http://www.pewinternet.org/2007/04/24/wikipedia-users/