Hypertext: Terry Harpold
The best current definition of hypertext, over quite a broad range of types is “text structure that cannot be conveniently printed”.
.. The “traditional seriality and definite order of the printed page invoked by Nielsen – much of hypertext theory has embraced the supposed tidiness of print as an axiom of system design – is deniable only in relation to the persistence of counter-serial and otherwise disorderly practices of writing and reading with paper and ink.
By hypertext, I simply mean non-sequential writing. A magazine layout, with sequential text and inset illustrations and boxes, is thus hypertext. So is the front page of a newspaper, and so are various programmed books now seen on the drugstore stands (where you make a choice at the end of the page and are directed to other specific pages).
.. Many people consider these forms of writing to be new and drastic and threatening. However,, I would like to take the position that hypertext is fundamentally traditional and in the mainstream of literature. Nelson (1990)
.. hyper-text as text’s liberated possibility
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