Hypertext and Spatial-Temporal Dimensions
missing works cited
Hypertext affords the user the ability to make decisions based on where he or she intends or needs to go, and to decide what information or images to process and what to disregard as opposed to what the author intends. The user is free to move around from link to link while constantly making decisions about what he wants to explore and what he deems unnecessary in his search; there is no correct path, rather all paths are relative to each individual user to what his preferences are.
The electronic reader is encouraged to think of the text as a collection of interrelated units floating in a space of at least two dimensions. Her movement among units does not require flipping pages or consulting the table of contents; instead, she passes instantly and effortlessly from one place to another (Bolter 175.)
With hypertext, as opposed to traditional methods of publishing such as books or magazines, information is presented in a space rather than in a physical object. Electronic readers move around a space with expandable dimensions, the reader is more or less in a small world in which he can explore things not confined by a physical book but opened in a room where everything is next to everything else, which is to say that there is nothing that really separates information apart from other information, each item is accessible through links from another item.
I visited a hypertext website, an online journal called Kairos dealing primarily with rhetoric, technology, and issues in hypertext, without motive beyond curiosity browsing the list of immediately available articles when one caught my attention. An article by Janice R. Walker entitled, gThe Third Wave: Yes, But Can They Write?h seemed interesting, and having no idea what the Third Wave is or who gtheyh are, I opened the article and immediately went to the Third Wave link. I wanted to read her conclusions and ultimately whether gtheyh could write. Instant gratification. (As it turns out gtheyh are students, and Walker is unresolved as to whether they can write.) It was not until after I had found the information that I sought that I returned to the Letfs Begin Here link and explored the article to
Stating that the scholars examined computer logs documenting the behavior of visitors who chose two sites that have several information outlets. The results showed that people showed a form of ‘skimming activity’, which supports him main argument of having troubles with deep reading (737). Further down on the same page, he states “It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of ‘reading’ are emerging as users ‘power browse’ horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.” This statement supports his pathos appeal of how the reader will be able to relate to it, including himself. Another pathos tactic would be when he states “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski.” A use of imagery to differ how he used to be able to thoroughly read a book, rather than now due to the convenience of the internet. An ethos appeal is when he uses a quote of Maryanne Wolf, an author, and a developmental psychologist at Tufts University, “We are not only what we read, though we are how we read. (737)” This is yet an additional credible support to his
Way, Brian. "The Great Gatsby." Modern Critical Interpretations: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. 87-108.
During the war between the gods and titans, a group of cyclopes, “endowed the three Olympian each with their own weapon”(“Hades” par 2). Zeus, God of the Skies, was given a bolt of lightning, Poseidon, God of the Seas, was given a trident, and Hades, God of the Underworld, was given a helm of invisibility (par 2). With this helm of invisibility, Hades was able to sneak into the enemy base and destroy most of their weapons (par 3). He was also able to distract and confuse the great Titan, Cronus (par 4). While Cronus was distracted, Poseidon was able to pin him down with his trident, and with the Titan disabled, Zeus was able to finish him off with his lightning bolt (par 4). Without Hades, the gods would not have the advantage of distraction and would not be able to face the might of
Hades is the King of the Underworld and God of the Dead and Death. Hades controls
An individual’s first thought when needing information has turned to “Let’s Google that!” Carr’s utilization of Bruce Friedman’s article where he states, “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print”, adds credibility to Carr’s claims. Here, he once again, shows how he relates to his audience through his statement, “Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, and begin looking for something else to do”. He shows through his statement that he relates to Freidman, with similar values and traits, linking the two ideas
First, he provides an overview of the history and development of the book as well as the development of reading. Carr analyzes and explains the effects of these developments on the individuals. Furthermore, he notes that the Internet recreates and alters a medium’s content by the use of hyperlinks, which ultimately distracts readers, and by separating the content into organized chunks. These characteristics make the content “searchable” which stimulates skimming behavior or superficial reading. As a result, readers retain less information due to the lack of deep, analytical reading. In addition, online texts often incorporate opinions, beliefs, or skewed viewpoints of certain topics, which can have negative effects on readers. Carr also addresses that some opponents believe that hardcopy reading was a result of “impoverished access” (111) and that the desire to use the fast paced web is a result of a quickening pace of life and work over the past few
More than 900,000 earthquakes occur per year, with more than 31,000 of those strong enough to be felt. Earthquakes...
Often accounts of the past, fragments of a story, and the author’s own interpretations are the result of personal bias. Carr conducted his research with a specific theory in mind, and made selections based off what aligned with his interests. He cites a recently published study of online reading habits, conducted by scholars from University College London. The shcolars examined computer logs documenting the behavior of visitors to two popular research sites, one operated by the British Library and one by a U.K. educational consortium, that provide access to journal articles, e-books, and other sources of written information. Apparently, they found that people using the sites exhibited, “a form of skimming activity,” hopping from one source to another. He offers that “Sometimes they’d save a long article, but there’s no evidence that they ever went back and actually read it.” (7). He’s implying the opposition, while in fact, if there’s no evidence that they did read it, there’s equally no evidence that they didn’t. Furthermore, after researching the article the actual quotes states, “Academic users have strong consumer instincts and research shows that they will squirrel away content in the form of downloads, especially when there are free offers. In spite of this behavior and the very short session times that we witness, there is no evidence as to the extent to which these
Nowadays people don’t bother sitting down and going through an article or book from page to page, because it’s not a good use of their time as they can get all information faster through the web. By examining the behaviors of computer users, both authors argue that people don’t really care about deep knowledge of what they are learning or reading. People want to know how things work or are connected in an instant. They feel that they don't need to critically think about the information to help get them along in life. “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” supports this claim by citing a scientific study from the University College London were the researchers examined the behavior of visitors to a couple popular websites and found that people using the sites displayed skimming activity (41). The users of the sites did not bother taking the time to read the articles, but they instead power browsed, jumping from one site to the other and hardly returning to the websites they had already visited. In addition, the internet has made people accustomed to new reading styles that people don’t fully comprehend or absorb material. They read things for apparent meaning. Carr also says “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski.”
Scheck, Barry, Peter Neufeld, and Jim Dwyer. Actual Innocence: Five Days to Execution and Other Dispatches from the Wrongly Convicted. New York: Random House LLC, 2000. Print.
In Is Google Making Us Stupid, Nicholas Carr disputes that due to new digital tools, peoples’ ability to retain and acquire information has been negatively altered. Even though, we have information at our fingertips, we often don’t take the time to soak in all the information. Carr mentions Bruce Friedman, a blogger, who finds it extremely difficult to read a “longish article on the web” and to try to focus on the importance of the text holistically (Carr 316). This is an issue that many can relate even Carr knows that, “ the deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle (Carr 314). Additionally, media theorist Mcluhan describes the net as “chipping away [mental] capacity for concentration and contemplation” (Carr 315). In essences, Carr states that we are having less of an attention span and consequently, less patience for longer articles (Carr 314). Therefore, this affects media outlets such as magazines, newspapers, and other articles, because they must conform and shorten their texts to fit the status quo that people safely enjoy (Carr 321). In addition, the net forces people to be efficient, and so, causes people to “weaken [their] capacity for deep reading” (Carr 317). People are becoming more driven on how quick he or she has to do something rather than think why this text is important. As a consequence, Carr believes that we are starting to lose our ability to be critical readers and
Mr. McCollum and his half-brother (Biesecker) “spent three decades in prison not knowing if they would ever be freed for being wrongfully convicted in 1983 for the rape and killing of a girl”; new DNA evidence shows they did not commit the crime. McCollum states, (Biesecker) “He watched 42 men sit on death row and make their last walk to the nearby death chamber to receive lethal injections, he believed many were innocent, if not for a series of lawsuits that had blocked any executions in the state of North Carolina since 2006, McCollum states he would have been put to death years ago”. (Biesecker) “McCollum expressed his belief that there are still other innocent men on the inside, he is the seventh death row inmate freed in North Carolina since 1976, the year the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court”. (Biesecker) “McCollum and his half-brother were never near the crime scene or had anything to do with it, but the man that did; lived less than a few miles down the road, and his DNA matched the DNA found on the cigarette butt near the victim”. If not for a new prosecutor and his acknowledgement of McCollum and Brown’s innocence the two would have been put to death for something they had nothing to do
The text was written with reading out loud in mind, that can not be recommended; but it is suggested that the reader attend with his ear to what he takes off the page: for variations of tone, pace, shape, and dynamics are here particularly unavailable to the eye alone, and with their loss, a good deal of meaning escapes. (87)
Our minds have changed from being able to focus and read a lengthy paper, to distracted and skimming for the little highlights to give us information. Media used to be lengthy pages full of information. Now it has turned into short snippets of the bold points in the articles, “Television programs add text crawls and pop-up ads, and magazines and newspapers shorten their articles, introduce capsule summaries, and crowd their pages with easy-to-browse info-snippets” (Carr 5). Media has played on our short attention span and constantly wondering mind by adding bright colors and bold prints to the many stories all around us. The days of one-page articles are over. Now one page turns into five to ten links, three sub-links, and twenty other sidebars.
Reading – we do it every day. In almost every aspect of our lives and often take it for granted. Reading is essential for human communication and increasing knowledge. However, because reading is so important even a small change can have a significantly large impact on our modern society. We are currently in a midst of a cultural revolution. In which the printed word is being transformed by the digital.