Running Head: WIKIPEDIA UPDATE PROCESS REPORT 1

Wikipedia Update Process Report: Letterpress Printing

Taylor E. Schumann

University of Wisconsin - Stout

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Abstract

The purpose of this project is to show my process of updating a Wikipedia page to help show

how to do so, as well as to show the importance of why I am updating this page. I chose to

update the Letterpress Printing page because I am a Graphic Design major, am thinking about

getting my minor in Printmaking. Letterpress printing is a huge part of learning typography, as

well as teaching good printmaking skills, so it is a topic I am highly interested in. By updating

this page, the audience that see’s it will have access to the most recent and accurate information

available. It will help other artists like myself to have a more reliable source to learn the basics of

Letterpress printing. By making and following an action plan, I will be able to update the

Wikipedia page “Letterpress Printing” and give readers more reliable outside sources to

reference.

Keywords: graphic design, art, Wikipedia, letterpress printing, design, printmaking.

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Wikipedia Update Process Report: Letterpress Printing

The question of whether Wikipedia is a reliable source or not has been going on for years.

While this may have been true during the dawn on Wikipediaes existence, as it has grown and

gained more users experts have been able to contribute to their respective areas of expertise and

turned Wikipedia into a plethora of reliable knowledge. In this paper I will walk you through my

process of updating the “Letterpress Printing” page to show how simple it is to add substance

and reliability to a Wikipedia page.

Rhetorical Analysis

Purpose1

According to Braziller and Kleinfeld (2014)…

Audience.

A person that may be seeking the article I have updated may be “

Rhetorical Appeals.

In the article I have chosen, ethos is lacking. This is due largely in part to the lack of

sources available to the reader. This may not be a huge deal to some readers, but most readers are

going to want the information they are getting to come from a more credible source. Logos is

obvious throughout the Wikipedia page, as it is in a chronological order and any parts that break

that order are clearly labeled, making it accessible and easy for people to navigate.

Modes and Media.

In this wiki article, the main mode is written text. There are a few images included,

but only as reinforcement of the text. The media is the internet.

Style
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The style of this article is just to give the readers a general understanding of letterpress

printing, as well as little history to put the letter print process into perspective. The article needs

additional support to flesh out and reinforce the information’s validity.

Design

In the book Braziller & Kleinfeld state that the design of an encyclopedic writing has to

be, “Accessible”. This Wikipedia page is accessible due to its media, and the format allows users

to get to the exact information they need easily.

Sources

In our textbook Braziller and Kleinfeld suggest that Wikipedia pages use “footnotes as

well as extensive reference lists”(106). This is one of the major things that needs development on

the page for letterpress printing page in Wikipedia. There are few in-text citations, and in general

more credible sources are needed to verify and support the information on the page.

Action Plan

OBJECTIVES TASKS SUCCESS TIME FRAME RESOURCES

(goals) (things to do to CRITERIA (when you will (what or who will
achieve goals) (how to define your accomplish your help you accomplish
success) goals) your goals)

Update the Find credible Ensuring I have 10/22/2018 UW-Stout

Letterpress Printing sources added relevant and Library
page’s source’s and Add these to the reliable sources that
add citations to wiki page make the page more
make the page more Make the page more cohesive and
credible. credible/reliable for reliable for the
readers. audience.
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Rhetorical Precis

According to David Wyble and Andreas Kraushaar, in their paper The Theoretical Basis of

Multicolor Letterpress Printing, in “color images one uses both additive and subtractive color mixing” to

print colored letterpress prints (2005). In order to develop their main idea, the authors use several

techniques such as statistics and color theory to support their argument in a logical fashion. The authors

are trying to convey to the audience the importance of color vectors in letterpress printing in order to

allow letterpress printers to have more colorful and unique prints. The intended audience for this piece

would be people in high level art fields, or those studying color theory in regards to printmaking. This

article will be implemented in the Letterpress Printing article on Wikipedia in the “craftsmanship”

section, to support the statements on layering color to achieve new colors within the print.

In the article titled ‘Typography” by M. Lee, the idea of the importance and technicality of

typography in print is discussed at length (2012). In order to develop the main purpose of the article, the

author goes to great lengths to discuss the “two fundamental principles of typography” and how it

relates to graphic design (p. 1). The authors main purpose is to give the reader a general idea of the

process and importance of typography in modern graphic design. This article will not be used in

the Wikipedia page update, merely because typography is a more modern concept and has yet to be

linked with the actual process of letterpress printmaking.

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Reflection

After completing the process of updating a Wikipedia page I found that this assignment is

much more of a challenge then I initially expected. I chose a Wikipedia article that only needed

more sources, but found that is was difficult to actually find relevant peer reviewed article that

related to letterpress printing because of the archaic nature of the technology compared to todays

technology.

Peer reviewed papers are typically written by people with expert knowledge to help

educate those who also hold a higher level of knowledge about whatever it may be that they are

studying or looking into studying. Once I sat down and starting looking through the articles that

UW- Stout has in their online database, I found that reading these papers as a person with little to

no knowledge on the process of letterpress printmaking was difficult. I was only able to find one

paper that actually fit within my Wikipedia update, despite reading through articles both inside of

and outside of class time. I was able to find another article related to my major, that talked a lot

about typography.

Through this assignment I was able to learn a lot more about the rhetorical situations that

build up a Wikipedia article. I learned that there are many similarities between all Wikipedia

pages. All Wikipedia pages are the same mode and media, being online and being easily

accessible to everyone. While the audience for each varies, the general audience for all

Wikipedia pages are just people who are seeking a general knowledge of something.

Doing the actual research throughout the process of updating the Wikipedia page allowed

me to learn a lot. I learned primarily about the UW-Stout online database that is run through the

Library here, and it taught me a lot about how available resources are for me as a student. I also

learned a lot about Wikipedia itself, and now am able to confidently find reliable sources from
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Wikipedia pages, allowing me to use it as an academically sound resource for future research

now. In the future I hope to be able to use the knowledge I now have about the UW-Stout Library

and Wikipedia to help me with research papers, and in my own major to find applicable

information.
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References

Braziller, A., Kleinfeld, E. (2014). Encyclopedia entries. In A. Braziller & E. Kleinfeld, The

Bedford book of genres: A Guide (pp. 100-108). Boston, MA. Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Wyble, D., & Kraushaar, A. (2005). The theoretical basis of multicolor letterpress printing,

Hans E. J. Neugebauer. Color Research & Application, 30(5), 322-331.

Gerard O. Walter. (1969). Typesetting. Scientific American, 220(5), 60-69.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letterpress_printing
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