I propose with the term "hypersuasion" to describe the nature of hypertext essays that take the hypertextual medium to an extreme in their use of linking potential and hypermedia abilities in order to effect readers.

Hyper: overly, excessive (abnormally excessive at times).
Suasion: (from the Latin "suadere") to urge, advise, or persuade.

Hypersuasion results from an author's attempt to move, advise, urge, or persuade her audience into acceptance of her tenets via the glitz of the hypermedia rather than relying on an ethos established through other measures (such as "ethical linking"). Too often, in my own work and that of my students, eye-catching sites distract research efforts--rather than looking at the material within the site, we are caught up in the spectacle. This distraction may be part of the cultural noise that is "inevitable" from a postmodern perspective, but not attempting to cut through it as much as we can when using the web for "academic" purposes can lead to the use of poorer sites in our students' papers (and our own). Of course this is idealistic. I know how I sound "poorer sites," "academic purposes," "cutting through the noise." But my argument is no different from a poetry teacher insisting that students use "quality," journal published poems, and professors requiring a certain level of source in seminar papers. We don't use People magazine as a critical source; likewise, we can't use just any website, but the standards for websites are hard to set.

Glitz sells; it persuades. Anyone can put anything on the web. One can link to anything on the web.

Commentators have noted the nearly endless paths that readers can follow. No doubt, an author can create a site which will set the reader onto a neverending path; However, one can, in an attempt to establish one's point--to qualify one's own voice--silence oneself by linking a page directly to a source. This manner of support for one's point seems akin to sending a reader to the library and telling them to read everything cited in an essay and to read everything cited in the cited essays, etc. My argument is not that we should avoid linking to external sources, nor is it that we should not read cited essays, books, and websites when an author indicates them for us.

My argument is that an author should be aware that by sending readers outward and away from his or her web, he or she might be letting the reader down. With the world wide web growing as a trusted source of information every day and with more and more students writing in this medium, we need to establish an understanding of critical principles: for one, we need a call for a New Ethos to balance Hypersuasion.