The Rhetoric of Hypertext
Patricia Ann Carlson · New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia · 1990
This study adopts as a fundamental orientation the view that hypertext may eventually bring about a paradigm shift in text delivery and in human information processing. However, paradigm shifts do not occur overnight; they are evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Because of the considerable commitment of Western knowledge and culture to the written word and to linear text, it seems likely that successful hypertext systems will — at least in the beginning — electronically emulate many of the strategies a sophisticated reader uses in dealing with hard copy. This article describes a project which modeled the functionality an intelligent reader would bring to paper text (specifically, a maintenance manual), and designed and implemented a hypertext version of the document using Apple Computer's HyperCard.Since few fully specified hypertext systems have been deployed, the research described here was undertaken to build a platform on which notions about the efficacy of non-linear text processing for a specific application could be tried out. This article describes a Stackware version of a portion of an aircraft maintenance manual and considers issues of (1) data storage models, (2) user interface, and (3) information retrieval methods for online text. These elements — among others — are the essence of the new rhetoric for non-sequential text.