·       Electronic literature

Taken on Dec 6, 2008  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_literature

 

 

Electronic literature is a literary genre consisting of works of literature that originate within digital environments.

 

 

·       Hypertext definitions

Hypertext is text that links to other information. By clicking on a link in a hypertext document, a user can quickly jump to different content. Though hypertext is usually associated with Web pages, the technology has been around since the 1960s. Software programs that include dictionaries and encyclopedias have long used hypertext in their definitions so that readers can quickly find out more about specific words or topics. Apple Computer’s HyperCard program also used hypertext, which allowed users to create multi-linked databases. Today, the Web is where hypertext reigns, where nearly every page includes links to other pages and both text and images can be used as links to more content. 

Taken on Dec 6th, 2008 from: http://www.techterms.com/definition/hypertext

 

·       Another definition available on internet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext

 

·       What is Hypertext ?           Taken on 9 Dec, 2008 from: http://cyberartsweb.org/cpace/ht/thonglipfei/hyper_defn.html

 

Below content prepared by webmaster

Hypertext conceives information as nodes and link networks forming navigable paths that can be toured, returned to and referenced.

It is a non-linear way of presenting information as below diagram. Instead of reading or learning about things in the order that predefined by author, editor or publishers, readers of hypertext may follow their own path, create their own order – their own meaning out of the material.

This is accomplished by creating "links" between information (Nodes). These links are provided so that the readers may "jump" to further information about a specific topic being discussed (which may have more links, leading each reader off into a different direction).

Diagram below represent a simple framework how hypertext links different nodes with each other. The blue document is the comment that a reader may attach on the document he/she read(Just like the green footnote added by the author in some of the webpage in this website to comment some quotation from others). The idea is also proposed by Vannear Bush in his Memex Machine.

Please click the arrow (linkage) at the bottom of this diagram or square(node) in the middle of diagram for link or node detail!!!

linkage_of_nodes

Click here only if you are interested to find out how other authors define hypertext.

 

·       Hypertext Stuart Moulthroup

Taken on Dec 8th, 2008 from: http://www.uv.es/~fores/programa/moulthrop_yousay.html

 

A hypertext is a complex network of textual elements. It consists of units or “nodes,” which may be analogous to pages, paragraphs, sections, or volumes. Nodes are connected by “links,” which act like dynamic footnotes that automatically retrieve the material to which they refer. Because it is no longer book-bounded, hypertextual discourse may be modified at will as reader/writers forge new links within and among documents. Potentially this collectivity of linked text, which Nelson calls the “docuverse,” can expand without limit. (Moulthroup pars. 5)