Module 5: Concept 31: Hypertext: links or structure?

While the WWW depends on hypertext, most of it uses hypertext merely for navigation (as in the first kind). Individual documents and even sites generally look much like linear, paper-printed materials. But, the whole of the web is rather more like the loose, unstructured ‘hypertext’ of the second kind. This suggests that hypertext is about both linking in the traditional way, but more effectively; and about structuring in a completely new way, based on this technology.

As advanced internet users we should address the new ways in which information is presented to us. This of course involves the use of hyperlinks. Hyperlinks are not the only method through which we navigate the various pages of a site. Hyperlinks also address the way in which we will absorb and view information from a particular document. A document or souce of information which was once linear, in that it had a beginning, middle and ending has changed. Through the use of hyperlinks, we the reader are now in control of the narrative structure of the information.