Interactive Hypertext for Interactive Readers
opinion Essay
1347 words
Interactive Hypertext for Interactive Readers
With every new advancement in technology the roles of the writer and the roles of the reader are changed; sometimes it is a small change and other times it can be a drastic transformation. In this modern age it seems the role that the reader or the audience plays is shifting significantly. I don’t think there has ever been a point in history where there was as much interactivity as there is currently. The main reason for this change in the reader’s role is the rapidly growing amount of hypertext being used.
In the 1960’s, Ted Nelson was the first person to coin this popular term “hypertext” but I prefer to reference Bolter’s description. Hypertext, as described by Jay Bolter in Writing Space, is layered writing and reading, where you can click on links within a narrative or article. These links work as reference points and can work as footnotes or as references to what you were reading. They can also take you to an entirely different type of webpage all together. Bolter also points out that it is important to realize that the second webpage you are linked to is not always subordinate to the first. On page 33, Bolter describes hypertext as being similar to “prewriting” which kids learn to do in school. I think prewriting is what I’ve always called a mind map, which is just a map drawn out like a spider web to show how each idea is interconnected to all the other ideas. Hypertext can be related to, but is not the same as, intertextuality(178). Intertextuality is the interrelation of all text on the same topic, language or culture, while hypertext is references within a text and allusions between texts. I think it is important to see the changes in the role of reader in hypertext fiction and reference web pages that incorporate hypertext.
The reference web pages that use hypertext give the reader more interaction and power, and which in turn, gives the author much less supremacy. Hypertext in reference websites can be very helpful, it enables someone to click on one website and have numerous links to an unlimited amount of information and knowledge. This makes me wonder if the people who have ready access to the internet will become smarter, over time, due to the accessibility of hypertext.
In this essay, the author
- Opines that with every new advancement in technology, the roles of the writer and the readers are changed; sometimes it is a small change or drastic transformation. hypertext is changing the reader's role.
- Explains that hypertext, as described by jay bolter in writing space, is layered writing and reading, where you can click on links within a narrative.
- Opines that hypertext references give the reader more interaction and power, which in turn, gives much less supremacy.
- Explains that hypertext fiction is a separate form of electronic writing. the links that can take you back and forth between chapters are what make it unique.
- Explains how the interactive fiction allowed readers to click on the graphics or words that seemed to grab their attention first.
- Opines that readers feel the same sense of accomplishment after finishing an interactive narrative as they do after completing a printed novel.
- Opines that bolter made quite a few observations and predictions about hypertext; during their own experimentation, they found most of these traits to be true.
- Explains bolter, jay d. writing space: computers, hypertext and the remediation of print.
- Analyzes fisher, caitlin's "these waves of girls". kairos 7:3. ed. scott rettberg.
Related
- explanatory
- analytical
- The Plot of Hypertextsexplanatory essayHypertexts are defined as, “a set of documents of any kind, (images, text, charts, tables, video clips, etc.,) connected to one another by links,” (Murray, 55). They have sparked interest in this new relationship between writer and audience. The plot is controlled/achieved by the reader, unlike in linear text where the writer controls the story’s destiny. The Victorian Web is such a hypertext. A project that began in 1987, The Victorian Web can be compared to a journal of interested readers contributing to the idea. It is a project of multiple writers, a feat nonlinear text can achieve with out a problem. With such possibilities, are hypertexts the new ideal medium?
In this essay, the author
- Explains that hypertext is the new literate medium of the future, arguably the present. they are nonlinear and the audience can choose the information necessary to move on.
- Explains that hypertexts have sparked interest in this new relationship between writer and audience. the victorian web is a project of multiple writers contributing to the idea.
- Opines that careful critiquing of hypertext is necessary when beginning to understand the new medium. the victorian web has numerous links on the home page alone, each link leading to a different path of interest.
- Describes how they explored the victorian web, which has 20 links on topics on the era, along with links for the function of the site itself.
- Explains the advantages of hypertext, specifically the victorian web, in its nonlinear form. the reader can gain the information that they are interested in with out the details that mean nothing.
- Opines that the internet has a funny way of losing authenticity of sources, for people can be anyone they would like online, even an “educated writer”.
- Explains that hypertexts are making trends on the literature we will create in the future. they allow for the reader to form a partnership with .
958 wordsRead More - Hypertext and Literatureanalytical essayHypertext is changing the way we read, write and conceptualize literature. Traditionally, the distance between reader and writer with written works is maintained by multiple levels of people, paper and time. Once a piece of work is published, the writer's responsibility basically ends; meanwhile, the reader is still responsible for knowing and understanding all of the references the writer includes in the work. Hypertext creates a hyper-extension of the work, basically giving it a life of its own. A printed book is unable to recreate this same detailed precision and accessibility because of its physicality. A published book cannot be recalled instantly in order to make any changes or update information, unless it is reprinted and there is always a defined amount of time involved. Hypertext has the ability to link a multitude of related subject matters and authors, while incorporating a variety of techniques, such as sound and movement, to involve and extend the relationship between readers and writers.
In this essay, the author
- Explains that hypertext is changing the way we read, write and conceptualize literature. the distance between reader and writer is maintained by multiple levels of people, paper and time.
- Analyzes how hypertext, like mary shelley's frankenstein, is capable of evolving into the multi-dimensional realm of sight, sound, movement, and tactility.
- Explains that the information produced with conventions not available to the printed book establishes a new relationship between the reader and the writer.
- Explains the implications of hypertext on the education system is potentially limitless. classic literature written in the original language is just as accessible as a translated version.
- Explains that hypertext has the advantage of consolidating information in a compact and cost effective manner, which again creates an unifying effect and extends the relationship of the reader's involvement
- Explains that hypertext enables the reader and other writers to become active participants in the development and extension of the original written work.
- Describes the key to theosophy: glossary, graves, robert, and patai. homer's odyssey cd-rom prototype.
836 wordsRead More - The Phenomenology Of On-Screen Reading By Ellen Roseanalytical essayThe article “The Phenomenology of On-Screen Reading: University Students’ Lived Experience of Digitised Text,” written by Ellen Rose covers a multitude of themes in which Ellen Rose interviewed ten participants from the ages of 20-55 and utilized their answers in order to communicate her belief that reading on screen is much different than reading a physical book. Throughout the article she targets her audience on students and uses pathos, ethos, and logos persuasions in order to appeal to her readers and convey that she is credible, trustworthy, and logical. With a close analysis of Ellen Rose’s article “The Phenomenology of On-Screen Reading: University Students’ Lived Experience of Digitised Text” it is safe to say that Rose draws her audience
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes ellen rose's article 'the phenomenology of on-screen reading: university students' lived experience of digitised text'.
- Analyzes how ellen rose uses christopher evans' words as a pathos persuading method to show how handheld books are different from what many individuals are used to.
- Analyzes how ellen rose uses ethos persuasions in her article "the phenomenology of on-screen reading: university students' lived experience of digitised text."
- Analyzes how ellen rose utilizes pathos and ethos persuasions in her essay, and logos, to show that she is logical and well-informed.
- Analyzes how ellen rose's article "the phenomenology of on-screen reading: university students' lived experience of digitised text" uses pathos, ethos, and logos persuasions.
1075 wordsRead More - Dishonest Linking and Framinganalytical essayBefore I get into my argument, I need to define a few more terms that are commonly confused or misunderstood. Some assume a uniform resource locator (URL), link, hyperlink, and hypertext are synonyms and this might lead to confusion if the distinction is not clear. By itself, a URL is just information and cannot do anything. It is a passive reference, much like a street address or telephone number. A link, on the other hand, is an active reference, a ...
In this essay, the author
- Argues that law should govern the deceptive and unethical practices of deep linking and framing against an author's express wishes.
- Explains the difference between a url, link, hyperlink, and hypertext.
- Explains that inline linking is functionally equivalent to copying.
- Argues that framing is the internet equivalent of pirating copyrighted material from famous newspapers, magazines, or television news programs.
- Opines that reliance on code could restrict fair use. search engines are an example of legitimate fair-use and must be protected.
- Concludes that dishonest linking and framing are theft or fraud, and require law as recourse for abuse.
- Analyzes how tweney, dylan, can stop a web site from linking to it.
- Argues that unrestricted linking and framing can impair the ability to sustain a freely accessible site without charging its users.
- Explains that bandwidth isn't free, since it costs time and money to run and maintain a server. artists and organizations are also affected by bandwidth drain.
- Cites cavazos, edward a., and coe f. miles. "copyright on the www: linking and liability," 4 rich.
- States kaplan, carl s. and kuester, jeffrey r., "hyperlinks, frames and meta-tags: an intellectual property analysis."
2258 wordsRead More - Reading and Thought by Dwight MacDonaldanalytical essayIn conclusion, we see that the nature of printed literature has changed nowadays as well as the way of thinking. We are on the road of losing our concentration, awareness and serious thinking abilities. We are faced with such negative effects as cyber bullying and Internet manipulations. I think it is not the direction we should move on.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes how dwight macdonald criticizes henry luce's idea of "functional curiosity" and concludes that functional curiosity only strengthens reader’s practice in reading rather than providing invaluable information.
- Explains that students may lose their attention and concentration with easy access to a large amount of information.
- Explains that literary reading enhances and enlarges citizens' thinking by helping them to imagine and understand different lives.
- Opines that the nature of printed literature has changed as well as the way of thinking.
871 wordsRead More - Technology and Literacyanalytical essayTechnology and Literacy According to Eric Havelock, “Greek literacy changed not only the means of communication, but also the shape of the Greek consciousness. The Greek story is self-contained, yet the crisis in the communication which it describes as taking place in antiquity acquires a larger dimension when measured against what appears to be a similar crisis in modernity” (17). In developing his conviction, Havelock focuses on the works of Homer and Hesiod: As written, there is no previous recorded preparation for them. Virgil, Dante, Milton had their predecessors.
In this essay, the author
- Analyzes dennis baron's claim in "from pencils to pixels" that writing is a way of engineering materials in order to accomplish an end. the changes and challenges faced by greek culture in its move from orality to literacy are in some ways similar to the changes
- Analyzes how thornton's "the lost world of colonial handwriting" shows that reading and writing were distinct accomplishments taught separately to different groups of people in different pedagogical settings for different purposes.
- Opines that technology is driving the changes in technique or if the opposite is true. in colonial times, the techniques used were simple and limited.
- Explains that the move from blue books to computers and multi-storied libraries to the information highway was neither painless nor smooth, but it occurred simply because of the advantages offered by the new technique, the personal computer.
- Concludes that homer and hesiod were not writers, at least not in the modern sense of the word.
- Opines that the increased use of technology will have an impact no matter what technique is used, but the alternative is to stagnate and no one wants that.
- Explains that baron, dennis, and havelock, eric a. the muse learns to write.
1672 wordsRead More - Is Google Making Us Stupid?analytical essayOur minds have changed from being able to focus and read a lengthy paper, to distracted and skimming for the little highlights to give us information. Media used to be lengthy pages full of information. Now it has turned into short snippets of the bold points in the articles, “Television programs add text crawls and pop-up ads, and magazines and newspapers shorten their articles, introduce capsule summaries, and crowd their pages with easy-to-browse info-snippets” (Carr 5). Media has played on our short attention span and constantly wondering mind by adding bright colors and bold prints to the many stories all around us. The days of one-page articles are over. Now one page turns into five to ten links, three sub-links, and twenty other sidebars.
In this essay, the author
- Opines that nicholas carr's article, "is google making us stupid?" makes points that they agree with, although they find his sources to be questionable.
- Analyzes how carr discusses the effects of the internet on our minds and the way we think, and how media has changed.
- Explains how media has played on our short attention span and constantly wondering mind by adding bright colors and bold prints to the many stories around us.
- Opines that carr's sources are highly praised in their field or study, but they are not experts in the effects the internet has on our minds.
- Analyzes how carrs discusses the way the internet gives us a false sense of knowledge. when we want to know about something we google it, find the article title closest to what we are searching for, and click it.
- Argues that our reliance on the internet is becoming too much for our own good. sergey brin and larry page's desire to turn their search engine into an artificial intelligence raises questions pertaining to real knowledge and artificial knowledge.
- Argues that the internet may rewire our brains, affecting us in other ways than just reading. fast, frequent, futile, information overloads the minds of today's society. human error is unavoidable.
- Analyzes how carr's article "is google making us stupid?" is flawed and does not provide adequate resources to back up his claims.
739 wordsRead More - Cyborg Imagination in the Age of Electronic Incunabulaanalytical essayIn Hamlet on the Holodeck, Janet Murray argues that we live in an age of electronic incubabula. Noting that it took fifty years after the invention of the printing press to establish the conventions of the printed book, she writes, "The garish videogames and tangled Web sites of the current digital environment are part of a similar period of technical evolution, part of a similar struggle for the conventions of coherent communication" (28). Although I disagree in various ways with her vision of where electronic narrative is going, it does seem likely that in twenty years, or fifty, certain things will be obvious about electronic narrative that those of us who are working in the field today simply do not see. Alongside the obvious drawbacks--forget marble and gilded monuments, it would be nice for a work to outlast the average Yugo--are some advantages, not the least of which is what Michael Joyce calls "the momentary advantage of our awkwardness": we have an opportunity to see our interactions with electronic media before they become as transparent as our interactions with print media have become. The particular interaction I want to look at today is the interaction of technology and imagination. If computer media do nothing else, they surely offer the imagination new opportunities; indeed, the past ten years of electronic writing has been an era of extraordinary technical innovation. Yet this is also, again, an age of incubabula, of awkwardness. My question today is, what can we say about this awkwardness, insofar as it pertains to the interaction of technology and the imagination?
In this essay, the author
- Argues that we live in an age of electronic incubabula, arguing that it took fifty years after the printing press to establish the conventions of the printed book.
- Confesses that they're a technodummy, which is to say someone who isn't exceptionally skilled in using computers.
- Describes the three kinds of interactions between technology and the imagination in the roles of writer and technodummy.
- Explains the concept of "technological paucity," which happens when a writer imagines something that the available technology will not create or will create only badly.
- Explains that hypercard is a temporally linear program and can't build an interactive waterfall of words because it only does one thing at once.
- Describes the interaction between technology and the imagination as "technological excess." hypercard's eight-sided cube is a metaphor for the unspoken conversation of four members of the family.
- Argues that technological paucity and technological excess are always present, or always possible, whenever anyone uses computers to create something.
- Explains that technological plenitude occurs when writers inhabit the conceptual space of a particular tool so thoroughly that what they imagine begins to take the form of the tool itself.
- Argues that the three relationships between technology and the imagination--paucity, excess, and plenitude-—obtain not only with regard to electronic media but with respect to all technologies of artistic creation.
- Analyzes how each kind of paint (oil, ink, pencil, charcoal, pastel, watercolor, acrylic, encaustic) allows different affordances and imposes different limitations.
- Explains that painting exploits technological paucity for effect. japanese calligraphy revels in doing what cannot be done.
- Explains that watercolor is unforgiving but gives brilliant colors, which makes it nicer for flowers and landscapes but a pain for figure work and portraits.
- Agrees that digital media are different from paintbrushes and canvas. bernstein reminds us of the productive quality of constraints in art, including the constraints of technological paucity.
- Opines that the concepts described can be applied to non-electronic media, but there are differences of scale and quality when they are applied.
- Argues that technological paucity in electronic media isn't like the difference between watercolors and oils, since the physical world operates from the bottom up, with fundamental particles operating in accordance with physical laws.
- Explains that a software program is less complicated than merely putting on paintbrushes. hypercard, director, flash, dreamweaver, and rube goldberg devices are examples of software programs.
- Argues that technological excess raises questions about distinguishing between a work of art or literature and its material embodiment.
- Opines that it is pointless to wish for better tools unless one has committed to learning and living with, fully, the limitations of any tools that are at hand.
- Opines that they want a virtual environment in which both readers and writers can fly. flying requires gravity, depends upon air currents and air pressure, and is kinesthetic and proprioceptive.
- Opines that one of the classic exchanges in hypertext theory is between michael joyce and stuart moulthrop, recounted by joyce in "so much time, so little to do."
- Explains murray, janet, hamlet on the holodeck: the future of narrative in cyberspace.
3509 wordsRead More - The Effects of Reading e-books on Reading Comprehensionanalytical essayIn today’s world, people are no longer confined to reading print books. Many people are embracing the digital world they live in by accessing reading materials through electronic devices. Over the last couple of years, e-reading capabilities have shifted to become available through devices like smart phones, tablets, computers, and e-book readers. While many individuals have noted the physical differences between reading print versus reading electronically, few have studied if the use of e-readers alters the manner in which material is read. Without the consideration of these effects, many schools have begun using electronic reading devices in the classroom as a substitute for print books. Therefore, it is important that the effects of e-reader usage on their ability to understand or comprehend literature be studied, in order to afford today’s children, the internet generation, the best opportunities for success in literacy.
In this essay, the author
- Argues that advanced literacy skills are crucial to success in the twenty-first century.
- Explains that e-book readers have been around since the 1970s, with the first being the declaration of independence and project gutenberg.
- States that aaron, p. (2005). reading interventions and strategies. in s. lee's encyclopedia of school psychology. thousand oaks, ca: sage publications, inc.
- Explains how e-readers have changed the way people read, and how they affect their reading comprehension.
- Cites l. j. fundukian's gale encyclopedia of e-commerce.
952 wordsRead More - The Future of Readinganalytical essay...wan believes, one of the best things about our digital lives is the ease with which we can share ideas with others. It is now possible for readers to connect with each other worldwide, as well as recommend and share their opinions about a particular piece of literature. Our need to engage in “deep reading” will not go away, as Rosen believes. The act of how we read may evolve as it has been evolving since beginning of mankind. How we read and write has evolved from cave walls to stone tablets to paper to keyboards. The digital world will not change what we read, but how we read. Because the experience of reading, the love of narrative, and cravings for story-telling is instilled into our DNA. Reading is a basic human need, it is evolutionary. Even though our means of attaining information or story telling may change, the act of reading is literally forever-lasting.
In this essay, the author
- Explains that reading is essential for human communication and increasing knowledge, but even small changes can have a significant impact on our modern society.
- Analyzes christine rosen's essay "in the beginning was the word" and tyler cowan’s “three tweets for the web.” both present evidence that our society is in a cultural transition, and printed world is less central.
- Analyzes how rosen, senior editor of new atlantis, points out how digital technology, especially in communication and entertainment, affects negatively on our lives socially and cognitively.
- Analyzes cowan's essay, "three tweets for the web," which argues that new media technology is effecting society positively by making us more observant to our surroundings and enlightening us with vast amounts of new information constantly.
- Explains rosen's belief that the image-dominated world clouds our experience on the web and challenges our ability to engage with the printed world by constantly shortening out attention span.
- Argues that multitasking isn't making us less smart, as technology allows people to do more things at the same time.
- Explains that the digital world is taking over the traditional printed world, but the future of reading still looks a lot like reading in the past.
1061 wordsRead More