• what is hypertext?
  • how to contextualize hypertext?
  • what is good hypertext?
  • hypertext as a reading and writing practice
  • hypertext as an approach of ‘doing reading and writing’

“Links not only constitute the hypertext as a hypertext (after all if there were no links it would simply be a traditional page) but are what forms and defines structure and establishes the relations between nodes that lies at the heart of link node hypertext as a discursive system.”

  • ‘authored links’ versus ‘forward and backward navigation tools’

Miles argues that

‘explicit, authored links are architectural, productively constructing relations between parts, while the use of the meta–navigation tools is only ever contingent, accidental and instrumental. If you rely on using the reading history (forwards and backwards) for your readers, or as a reader, then the relations that are produced move towards the accidental, but if you write with links then pathways are always planned passages through the work.’

So, links define the structure of the hypertext and rather than relying on the navigation tools, the awareness of using links to navigate through the hypertext creates the connections between nodes. The aim is not the ‘accidental’ connection but constructed links.

The use of navigation tools in hypertext seems pre-determined towards its readers however, this only gives the ‘forward and backward’ pathway. While the constructed links provide a rather appropriate structure for hypertext.

  • it seems significant to connect all nodes in hypertext and provide ‘link opportunities’ for each node in hypertext; providing relations between nodes
  • repetition in a ‘good’ hypertext that can lead to ‘literal’ writing to a more ‘poetic’ approach in using terms or discuss ideas

[...] ‘the creation of link opportunities provides multiple possible points of connection between nodes and that this builds discursive structure.’

  • from basic use of terms to link between nodes, this can develop into ‘abstract and associative patterns between nodes’
  • creating many possible connections between nodes
  • Miles mentions an example wherein, instead of using literal nouns to link nodes, verbs are used to connect one node to others; providing room for abstraction; moving from literal towards poetic

Reference:

Miles, Adrian. “Hypertext Teaching.” Reading Hypertext. Eds. Mark Bernstein and Diane Greco. Watertown: Eastgate, 2009. 223-38. <http://vogmae.net.au/research/thinking/Hypertext-Teaching/>

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