Burbules, Nicholas C. "Rhetorics of the Web : Hyperreading and Critical Literacy" Page to Screen: Taking Literacy Into the Electronic Era. http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/facstaff/burbules/ncb/papers/rhetorics.html (28 Feb 2000)
In this paper, Burbules states that the key element in hypertexts is the link and considers its significance in terms of the different things it can do for the hypertext. Interpretations of the link should go beyond seeing it as a mere device for connecting texts. Instead, a more thorough and informed understanding of the link would yield the perception of it as an element which through its associative relations, changes, redefines and provides enhanced or restricted access to information.
Review
Even
though notable hypertext researchers such as Landow, Snyder and Barthes and a
whole host of other contributors to the subject have written impressively and
extensively about hypertexts in general – its history, its environment (the
World Wide Web) its dissimilarities with and advantages over the printed text,
its effects on pedagogy etc, few, if any, have devoted their thoughts to the
hyperlink as a fundamental element of hypertexts[1].
Because although the hyperlink has no significance without the hypertext which
explains the preponderance of articles on the larger and apparently more
important issue of hypertexts, equally, the hypertext is not a hypertext (as
defined by Landow and the other writers) without the supporting function
provided by the hyperlink. As such, the hyperlink’s significance cannot be
overstated and Burbules’ relatively in-depth and critical exploration of the
hyperlink is to be valued for that reason.
[1] It is to be noted here that although Landow does include a section on hyperlinks in “Hypertext: the Convergence of Contemporary Critical Theory and Technology”, his discussion is confined only to an elucidation of the various forms of linking, their uses and limitations. The link is not represented as being more than a linking device and having meaning potential.