abstract

background

theory

praxis

models

course

software instruction
default to linear
theory gap
design

references

With over a decade of theorizing about the impact of hypertext on academic writing, the possibilities for such hypertexts remain very much underexplored in practice (Bernstein, 1999; Bolter, 1998; Shauf, 2001). I am becoming convinced that it will take generational change in the academic community for scholars to truly exploit new media possibilities in academic writing. And we may be several generations away from the comfortable deployment of what Drucker (2002) calls configured language in academic writing. While I am not as concerned as Shauf (2001) about the eclipse of the rhetorical by the technical, I do suspect that a technical-rhetorical split will endure for some time given the increasing specialization and vocationalization of higher education. Students majoring in technical fields have little exposure to instruction in written communication, while others focused in the social sciences and humanities get limited exposure to the technical elements in new media.

This kind of split played out in my hypertext theory and practice class in a very interesting way. Even the students with computer programming, HTML experience, and image editing competence tended to conceive of their essays as largely linear productions. Students knew they were in a composition class, and that the class was working on the academic essay as hypertext. But the overwhelming weight of the linear convention of academic writing was difficult to shake.

default to linear, continued

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