Comments on: reading offline, reading online

By: rick roche

rick roche — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:00:37 +0000

Thanks for pointing out the hyperlink in text issue. I had never examined what I do. I usually pass over them and go back, though on occasion if one is very tempting, I link and sometimes never finish the original piece.

I think I have reduced my links, only adding ones I really want someone to see, instead of every possible link as I did for awhile. Put in too many links and no one looks at them. Also, you may get investigated as spam if you put in tons of links.

By: Kaijsa

Kaijsa — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:20:00 +0000

Thanks for pointing to this. I haven’t looked at C&I for a while, and this article will be useful for the lit review I’m updating for a research study. We’re looking at reading habits of college students and pointing out that the NEA reports aren’t exactly useful. We’re going to gleefully cite Walt now.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:53:18 +0000

Ah, my friend, glad to hear it. Not that I believed you meant what it sounded like (to me, anyway) you were saying.

As I said, I do agree. Not necessarily bad; just different. When the tool suits the purpose then it is a good, and when it doesn’t …. But definitely not or. We need both kinds, and more.

By: laura

laura — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 00:08:38 +0000

Mark, I didn’t mean to imply that hyperlinks are the equivalent of footnotes — that’s sloppy thinking/writing on my part. I track down footnotes too, on occasion (I used to give my students an extra credit assignment that involved finding the book or article a footnote cited, reading a little of it, and writing me a paragraph or two about whether they thought the author was citing the book/article appropriately — I think only two people ever did this). What I wanted to say, really, is that online reading and the kind of skipping around it involves is not necessarily bad, just different. And not or again, as Walt would say.

And yeah, Walt, I can’t imagine writing a hypertext essay, although that doesn’t mean I don’t think it could be done.

By: walt crawford

walt crawford — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 23:05:41 +0000

Good commentary–one I may use part of in a followup article at some point.

And having a 12,000-word essay called “a lot of fun” fairly makes my weekend, Mark.

The NEA succeeded in its agenda to some extent: It got more money. Hard to argue with that–but easy to argue with the methodology.

By the way, I’ve read attempts at true hypertextual essays and fiction. Not pretty, at least not the ones I’ve seen…and “not pretty” is a kind way of putting it.

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 22:56:00 +0000

That piece by Walt is a lot of fun as he skewers the heck out of people who write idiotic reports due to having an agenda.

But, um, I follow me the hell out of some footnotes, thank you very much. While hyperlinks *can* serve some of the purposes of footnotes, they often do not.

While everything in Steve’s example could and probably would be written in a text document with footnotes, I would say that only 2 out of 6 are serving in anything like a typical, “historical” footnote way. In this example of writing, they are also the only 2 I would probably follow. Except I have already [even then] seen them.

I do not know what the differences are between hyperlinks and footnotes–they are myriad–as they both have multiple uses. I agree that they overlap some, but in many ways they do not. And the writing is different because the tools to do it are different; that is, they serve different purposes. And, yes, this may well be a chicken and egg thing.

Now, I am not arguing against any part of your post–except the who follows footnotes still–just trying to add something to it.