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12/01/2004 Archived Entry: "the rhetoric of linking"

The Rhetoric of Linking
To continue where I done left off....
Hypertext theory's biggest failure, it seems, is to put all its money in narrative. That the visible hypertext folks (mostly affiliated with Eastgate) continue to see hypertext as only a way to tell complex stories is indicative of the initial interest in hypertext coming from literary studies. Composition, on the other hand, a more viable field for thinking about linking, connectivity, interactivity, and, of course, rhetoric, has failed to show much interest in hypertext. Yes, we have seem some initial studies (Slatin/Johndan) but then the well dries up, the courses never integrate the logic of hypertext into their curricula, and the field gets bogged down with the issue of time (I HAVE NO TIME TO TEACH HTML).
Which is a pity. The link. Nelson's early understanding that all information/ideas are "intertwingled." WAC never got the concept down (each discipline to its own area of study), and writing instruction as told by the textbook industry still struggles to break out of formula more suited to individual writing done by individual writers (who occupy individual identities - that of the student).
But the link is what makes the Web so exciting and weird. The metafilters, waxys, boing boings, and, of course, weblogs, which gather and sort the vast amount of information out there. . . these sites transform the Web into a text of linkings and interlinkings. The Web generates a rhetoric which has little to nothing to do with “non-narrative” and more to do with the network – the complex intersection of thought. But unlike the linking set up in the web versions of television (CNN ABC), the link engines connect with the unfamiliar as well as the familiar. When the familiar becomes overlinked, it, too, becomes common to us all. But we get a so-called alternative that is quite expansive and overpowering, a galaxy of constellations, a mosaic, as McLuhan writes.
So why not teach this writing?

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Posted by Auntie Lupe @ 12/02/2004 02:23 PM EST

Well, of course we should teach it. Part of the problem, however, is that most compositionists have not done this kind of writing so they'd be hard pressed to teach it.

I've been writing my blog for 18 months now and I've developed my own pattern of using images and links. I've learned to write sentences that produce the phrases I want as the link. I've played around with photos to see how they can work with text.

You and many other compositionist bloggers have done the same. Because writing for the web is more rhetorical than technical, the profession has to head in this direction. But it will be led by the younger compositionists who are doing it, thus learning how it might be taught.

Also, it will help when major publishers integrate the web into major publishing projects.

Posted by John @ 12/01/2004 08:26 PM EST