writing. A communicative situation in the variety of language can only happen if the available information is appropriate according to certain rule of writing.
Genre is a message type that recurs regularly in a community in terms of semantic content, participants, occasions of use, and so on that tends over time
to develop an identifying internal structure, differentiated from other message types in the repertoire of the community Biber and Finegen, 1994. Related to
the Genre theory that emphasizes the identification of internal structure to differentiate one text to another, the researcher analyses the text structure in the
biographical writing in Wikipedia. In a simple way, both theories particularly imply that there is a certain
“rule” which is social generated in writing information, especially writings that can be read by many people posted on the Internet. Under this consideration,
the researcher compares the biographical writings on the Wikipedia to other biography writings written by professionals and other trusted sources such as
books that are published by trusted Publishers. It is limited to biographies of famous Indonesian people because the researcher is an Indonesian that cares
about the quality of the information about his country that is shared for people around the world to read. In conclusion, the researcher is concerned to
investigate the biographies of famous Indonesian people based on the register and genre theories.
1.2 Problem Identification
This study addresses two research questions: PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
1. How compliant are the Wikipedia contributors to follow the theory of register to provide the information needed as shown in 3 biographical accounts of
famous Indonesian people? 2. To what extent do the Wikipedia contributors effectively follow the
biographical genre rules i.e. idea organization as shown in 3 biographical accounts of famous Indonesian people?
1.3 Problem Limitation
In this research, the researcher focuses on the lack of information and the information organization in Wikipedia biographies of famous Indonesian people.
The researcher chooses 3 biographies of famous Indonesian people. These 3 biographies are written and revised from the period of 2013-
2015. The time period is selected under the consideration that the information is still up to date and sufficient to be analyzed.
1.4 The Research Objectives
The objectives of this research are: 1.
To find out whether or not the biographies in Wikipedia.com are compliant with the guidelines of writing biographies in terms of good information provision to
enable a good communicative situation between the reading and the readers as
suggested in the register theory.
2. To find out whether or not the biographies in Wikipedia.com are compliant with
the guidelines of writing biographies in terms of idea organization as one of the criteria in a good biography text type in the theory of genre.
1.5 The Research Benefits
The benefits of this research as follows: 1.
For Scholars:
The background knowledge of making an appropriate Biography will help students to understand the concept of biography writings and its usage,
especially those posted on a well-known website such as Wikipedia. The information in this research is provided and it is hoped to improve students’
understanding on Biographical writing. Moreover, it is hoped that students can be more detailed and careful in sorting out and searching for the information on
the Internet. They must consider the source of information is reliable and accountable or not.
2. For Information Seekers in the digital era:
The Wikipedia is a website that has a slogan the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. This research will help seekers of information from the internet
to see the lack of information that appears in a well-known website such as Wikipedia. Hence, it makes them to be more critical in seeking information.
3. For Future Researchers:
This research discusses about Biographical writings. For the future researchers who are interested in discussing the same topic can use the
information or the references that have provided by the researcher.
1.6 The Definition of Terms
