When we talk about Hypertext, we are referring to a text that leads you to another text usually through hyperlinks. This term was created by Ted Nelson, and he defined it as “a body of written or pictorial material interconnected in such a complex way that it could not conveniently be presented or represented on paper”.
In the days when this term was innovative, it referred to a form of electronic text; it was a new way of getting the information and publishing it. The texts consist of blocks, they are divided in blocks and these blocks are joined with links. Hypertext is like a puzzle: it has pieces, and if they are all joined, you get the whole piece.
One of the main objectives of the hypertext is to organize big amounts of information. If a hypertext if good, you might find several links on the text; if it has less than three links, we could consider it simply sequential text. Another important thing, although it might sound obvious, is to put the links correctly and make sure that the links go to documents that you have under your control, since you may not find a document if you have put a link to another person’s text and he or she has deleted it.
References:
- Noah Wardrip-Fruin(author). What Hypertext is. (2004). In acm Portal, the guide to computing literature. Retrieved 21:57, February 7, 2009, from http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1012844
- Hypertext. (2009, February 4). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22:06, February 7, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hypertext&oldid=268470536
- Hypertext. In Connected: an Internet Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22:13, February 7, 2009, from http://www.lincoln.edu/math/rmyrick/ComputerNetworks/InetReference/12.htm
- George P. Landow(author).The definition of Hypertext and Its History as a Concept(1992). In Hypertext & Hypermedia. Retrieved 22:24, February 7, 2009, from http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/ht/jhup/history.html#1
