So What is Hypertext, Anyway?

Thus, after an hour and a half in the computer lab and a brief discussion of hypertext, I ask students to define "hypertext."

This is not an easy task. Scholars are still debating exactly how to define hypertext (here are my reflections on the problems and pedagogical possibilities contained in any definition of hypertext). But the students take to it; they reflect on their recent experiences; they begin to write.

• Zvonko Vasic decides, “Hypertext is the organization of a computer website where a document is linked to several other branches of information regarding the subject you choose to look upon.”
• (James) Jian Wang insists, “Hypertext is very nice thing that help us to compare between two writings. It is really something cool and easy. It something that you look for and it shows up in a second. It helps you to write something perfectly.”
• “Hypertext is the language that the Internet uses to transfer information to the net surfer, using links to get to other sites,” Michael Carney points out.

Before we move on as a class, we share our definitions and I bring in some expert definitions of hypertext (Rouet, Nelson, Bolter). We discuss all the definitions and try to decide where we stand in relationship to others working with the question of what is hypertext. I insist that the authorities we're discussing are not the be-all-and-end-all answer, just reports from along the way. In fact, I remind the group that because most of the expert opinions I'm bringing in are already dated that our definitions based on experience are often equally accurate. The expert definitions also lead to a discussion of what makes writing sound authoritative.

• Rouet writes that hypertext is: “a text storage system 'in which nodes are text chunks (e.g. lists of items, paragraphs, pages) and links are relationships between nodes (e.g. semantic associations, expansions, definitions, examples; virtually any kind of relation that can be imagined between two text passages) (Rouet 3).'”
• Nelson says, “By hypertext, I mean nonsequential writing--text that branches and allows choices to the reader, best read at an interactive screen. As popularly conceived, this is a series of text chunks connected by links which offer the reader different pathways” (Nelson 0/2).
• And, Bolter claims that “it is the ability to create and present hypertextual structures that makes the computer a revolution in writing. The computer as hypertext invites us to write with symbols that have both an intrinsic and extrinsic significance. That is, the symbols have a meaning that may be explained in words, but they also have meaning as elements in a larger structure of verbal gestures. Both words and structures are visible, writeable, and readable in the electronic space” (Bolter 15-16).

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