2. Teaching the text
And yet, how do we define hypertext? Even if we exclude hypermedia and
focus on the textual, don't we encounter conflicting definitions? That
is, on one level one would want to define hypertext by its technological
features and its interactions with hardware platforms and software environments
(e.g. the work of Randall
H. Trigg at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center). Opposed to this type
of technology-driven definition is the theorists' desire to define hypertext
based on "the experience of the author/reader." David Kolb's hypertext Socrates
in the Labyrinth also suggests the possibilities of the medium, its potential to hold and to
transform philosophical methods/arguments. It is this second aspect of
hypertext--what hypertext could be or the potentials of hypertext--that
seems most difficult for me to define. At this moment, to look at the Web
and define hypertext in the composition classroom is still to focus on
the textual.
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