The term hypertext was coined by Theodor Holm Nelson [1]. The term started as an expression to describe hypermedia -which is human-authored media that is interconnected in such a manner that it cannot be illustrated on paper [1]. However, in the literary community the term has its' emphasis solely on the link attribute. A definition of modern relevance is by Marie-Laure Ryan stating that hypertext is text in which the reader decides how it will be read and followed by clicking on certain areas (hyperlinks) that open new segments of information[2].
As key characteristic of hypertext is that it allows an interaction with information via association. The human mind learns by association (consult the blog 10/02 As we may think by Vannevar Bush ) and this characteristic allows humans to convert all this readily accessible information into knowledge.
The navigation of hypertext systems is aided by the browser. The browser allows the inclusion of hyperlinks and seamless access to the respective pages. The way the system is ordered is non-sequential and this is inline with its’ associative characteristic.
The structure, from a formal perspective follows the structure of hyperlinks and its respective html tags. The use of the a and href tags are used to include the hyperlink. Furthermore, the link is displayed in a different colour on the webpage (blue) to aid the reader and indicate that this item is in fact a link.
References
- [1]Nelson, T. A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing, and the Indeterminate. Association for Computing Machinery: Proc. 20th National Conference 1965, 84-100.
- [2]Wardrip-Fruin, N., 2004, August. What hypertext is. In Proceedings of the fifteenth ACM conference on Hypertext and hypermedia (pp. 126-127).