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Hypertext nodes suffer from lack, rupture, and departure. They are not whole texts: they are parts to a fragmented whole that can never be "perfectly whole." They have been created in this "broken" state. Nodes connected by links to other nodes depend upon the incomplete nature of their individualities to carry the reader forward. In this sense, the hyptext is quite similar to deconstructionist senses of "normal" texts. None of the nodes can stand as the center of the hypertext because each of them depends upon the others to fill its ruptures and lack. At the same time, none of them require the reader to move through them in his voyage to make meaning of the separate nodes.

Every link marks an opening. While it is my argument that the hypertext author can widen or narrow the gaps that links leave, at no point can the functions of the link fill the the opening--because it is the opening. The link marks lack in that the author sees need for elaboration, association, or some other connection to add on to the existing node. The link marks rupture in that with each marked link, the reader might abandon the node she is presently in and never come back. This is not a "problem," this is the nature of the hypertext; but it

ON LACK: Sometimes, the lack is one that the reader will be able to fill in without needing to follow the link--with definitions and other supplemental material. These types of links, those that lead to supplemental material are included by the writer as "readerly links"--or links for the reader. Other times, the signified lack leads the reader to new information or to the writer's synthesis of material. In this case, the lack signified is a writer's desire to bring the reader to a new state of knowledge--the link is a writerly one.

Links always suggest the ability to call a new node onto the screen. In this sense, links in their most basic form of signification represent the changing of information upon the computer screen. At this level, one knows a link is present because the pointer in the browser's window indicates it. Both Netscape and Internet Explorer, the two most popular browsers, indicate the presense of a link by changing the pointer from an arrow to a hand icon--this area of the screen is often called "hot." When one sees the hand icon in these browsers, one knows that that area of the hypertext represents the ability to change nodes. Everything beyond that representation of the potential for something different from what is currently seen is put onto the link by the author. Peirce's terms cover the nature of functions an author can put upon a link to mark the sign as more, or possibly less, efficient than that basic knowledge.