abstract

background

theory

praxis

models

course

multilinearity
visual rhetoric
theory in practice

references

For the most part, hypertext theory grows out of observations of hypertext practice. Hypertext is described as multilinear, for example, because scholars who examine the relationship between author and reader recognize that the author establishes possible paths through a hypertext by constructing hypertext links, while different readers follow different lines through a given hypertext within the parameters set by the author (Bolter, 1998; Cripps, 2002).

This relationship between theory and practice can also work the other way, particularly when individuals look to theory to inform their constructions of hypertext. Given Kolb's (1994) general counsel against disrupting linearity in the academic essay (particularly in philosophy), individuals interested in exploring the future of the academic essay as hypertext would do well to draw on hypertext theory in constructing academic hypertexts.

There is certainly a need for this kind of experimental work, as Bolter observed in 1998. "We do not have hypertextual models for the kind of text that still forms the basis of traditional, literary education: the persuasive essay" (p.7). Six years out from Bolter's implicit call for experimentation, there now exist a variety of peer-reviewed academic hypertext journals (Culture Machine and Kairos, for example) whose contributors help us explore the academic essay as hypertext.

Still, most peer-reviewed academic journals with a web presence basically re-print text articles in HTML, or make them available as PDF files. The effect of this practice is the relocation of conventions of the print version of the academic essay to the web. Academic hypertext remains largely in its infancy, at least as hypertext that employs elements that hypertext theorists claim are central to hypertext.

One potentially productive way to explore academic hypertext is to encourage students just learning conventions of academic writing to compose their work as hypertext. Rather than reconstruct linear print essays as hypertexts after the fact, such individuals are potentially in a position to compose academic essays that are best read (or experienced?) in a hypertextual medium.

multiple perspectives? | attention to audience | moments of critique
productive messiness

abstract | background | theory | praxis | models | course