Hypertext: The Future of Written Discourse

It's actually more the present of discourse than the future. Already, it is more common to find people searching the web for dictionary and/or encyclopedia entries than that turning to their bookshelves to dust off the ol' Encyclopedia Brittanica. If you ask someone the capital of some obscure country, they aren't going to look at an atlas, but they'll probably type " capital" into Google search and have their information in seconds. And now, in a college-level writing class, rather than writing a research paper the old fashion way, we are presenting research using a hypertext site of our own design. This weeks readings were all about the design aspects of those hypertexts and how they change the way we process information.

Cripps had an entire lexia of his site devoted to the discussion of multiliniearity; in a normal written paper, all of the information is presented in a linear fashion because we read left to right, top to bottom. In a hypertext, information is separated into blocks that Cripps calls nodes or lexia (what the average user would probably prefer to call pages =/), and the order in which those nodes can be acessed is partially influenced by the writer but ultimately determined by the reader. Where a writer chooses to use hyperlinks can determine how a hypertext can be read, and the order in which it is read will have a profound effect on how the information is processed.

I obviously agree with everything that Cripps says; in fact I've generally taken all of his points for granted. What is interesting is how much more responsible the concept of multilinearity makes the writer. At first glance, a hypertext research project seems a lot easier because I don't have to think about the transitions between ideas. However, quite to the contrary, not only do I have to develop transitions that go from one idea to the next, but I now feel responsible for developing a single transition that could flow into one of any x threads, where x is a number I decide based on how I choose to hyperlink my site.

In all of my previous experiences with web development, I have been in a business environment, and so I have been designing sites with the intention of allowing a user to access any piece of information that they are looking for very quickly. However, in a hypertext discourse, that is not necessarily the goal. In order to effectively argue a point, I need to be able to not only provide factual information, but tie facts to conclusions without putting too many words on a page. Tough work indeed.

PowerPoint: Medium vs. Message

In reading the articles for this week, I've come across theories that PowerPoint is evil, the devil, and makes us stupid. The level of overstatement in all of the articles almost made me laugh. Seriously though, what are these people talking about?

I will agree with the idea that PowerPoint can be meaningless and extraneous. David Byrne's mockery of the PowerPoint arrows actually made me think; people who are inexperienced in the use of the application tend to go crazy with useless word art, neon-colored arrows, and random clip art simply because the audience probably likes to look at pretty colors. And even more to the point, there are people who will look at one of those presentations and think it was good simply because it used every imaginable feature the application has to offer. However the confusion that has arisen is a result of mixing up the medium with the message, which PowerPoint certainly makes it a lot easier to do. However a bad speaker putting together a nice PowerPoint presentation does not suddenly revolutionize their abilities and it certainly doesn't make their argument come across any stronger. While people may make the mistake of the presentation seeming more professional, it doesn't mean they are going to be any more convinced by the actual content of the speech.

Julia Keller's anecdote about the football coach is similar; a good coach is not going to use PowerPoint to motivate his players at halftime. PowerPoint might be a great tool for scouting (showing your players what the other team looks like offensively and defensively) or for replacing the standard "chalkboard talk," and a good coach is going to understand the difference.

The basic theme of my opinion is that PowerPoint and all of its features are tools in the same way that hand motion, use of non-PowerPoint visual aids, and something as simple as intonation are tools. PowerPoint has as much potential to make a presentation more poingant as it does to ruin the effect. PowerPoint isn't evil and it doesn't make us stupid, but some of the people that use it need just a little more work.

The First of Many

Well this is going to be my E-Rhetorics blog. If you have any interest in me or my friends, feel free to check out my other blog at http://imperfect-enigma.blogspot.com.

One way I can tell that I'm going to enjoy this class is that about ten minutes into my first class session, I already had some ideas about what to write my research paper on.

Topic the first: As a background, I am an avid forum-goer, and I post on two or three forums regularly at any given time. In addition, I read at least twice as many as I post on. Forum culture to me is amazing, especially in that the environment and personality of two forums on very similar topics and even having several of the same people can be entirely different. Doing some research on the history of internet discussion boards (with some history of BBS included) would be an interesting endeavor, and I think it would be a personally relevant topic. I don't really have an idea for a specific question as of yet, but I'll be thinking.

Topic the second: One of the most interesting forms of online communication is also the oldest: IRC. The most freeform, unregulated place to meet and talk to complete strangers. It can be a great place if you want to spill your life's story to a bunch of people you don't know, and it can actually prove to be an incredibly valuable source of information. The best part is that it is completely anonymous, and you can even change your name every five minutes if you so desire. If you want to see some of the best conversations ever conducted on IRC, I highly recommend visiting www.bash.org. Anyway, I think another interesting topic would be to spend some time researching the progression of the IRC community and analyzing the effect of anonymity on it.

Topic the third: This is sort of an overarching idea that combines the other two topics and focuses on a specific aspect: the anonymity. In a discussion forum, you have some sense of anonymity, but because people tend to be associated with a single user name, you still develop a reputation and a forum persona that doesn't go away. I like to call this "limited anonymity." In the IRC world, there is no limitation on how often you change your identity and/or personality, so you effectively have "complete anonymity." The two medium of communication are completely different, and I think it could be exciting to take a look at the effects of different levels of anonymity on the community at large.