Untitled - witz cultural

l9EHYPERTEXT 3.0new kind of hypertext writing as a mode that both emphasizes and bridgesgaps and that thereby inevitably becomes an art of assemblage in whichappropriation and catachresis rule. This is a new writing that brings with itimplications for our conceptions of tert as well as reader and author. It is atext in which a new kind of connection has become possible.ls This Hypenext Any GoodlOr, How Do We EvaluateQuality in HypermedialWhat is quality in hypertextl How in other words, do we judgea hypertext collection of documents (or web) to be successfulor unsuccessful, to be good or bad as hypertert? How can wejudge ifa particular hypertext achieves elegance or never risesabove mediocrityl Those questions lead to another: What izr.particularis good about hypertext? What qualities does hypertexthave in addition to those possessed by nonhypertexhral forms of writing,which at their best can boast clarity, energy, rhphm, force, complexity, andnuancel What qualities, in other words, derive from a form of writing that isdefined to a large extent by electronic linkingl What good things, what desirablequalities, come with linking, since the link is the defining characteristicof hypertextl As I have argued earlier, the defining qualities of the mediuminclude multilinearity, consequent potential multivocality, conceptual richness,and-especially where informational hlpertext is concerned-readercenterednessor control by the reader. Obviously, works in a hypertext environmentthat firlfill some or all of these potential qualities exemplify qualityin hypermedia. Are there other perhaps less obvious sources of qualitylOne question we must raise while trying to identify sources of quality inhypermedia is, To what extent do literary and informational hlpermediadifferl In the following pages, I shall propose several possible ways to answerthese questions, each ofwhich itselfinvolves a central issue concerning thisinformation technology.Individual Lexias Should Have an Adequate Number of Links. Since the linkis the characteristic feature that defines hypertextuality, one naturally assumesthat lexias containing a larger number of valuable links are better than thosethat have fewer. Of course, the emphasis here must be on "valuable." In theearly days of the Web, one would often come upon personal homepages inwhich virfually every word other than the articles the, a, and an had links,many of which led to external sites only generally connected to the discussionat hand. Obviously, overlinking, like choosing poor link destinations, is badlinking. As Peter Brusilovsky and Riccardo Rizzo have pointed out in .,Map-Based Horizontal Navigation in Educational Hypertext," the opposite prob-