Introduction
Facing the Future of Electronic Publishing

Enculturation, Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 2002

Hypertext, Form, and Scholarly Argument

The move from page to screen heralds a shift in both editor's roles and forms of textuality. While Enculturation's contributions to this special issue are about new forms of argument and textuality on the web (though at times implicitly), they also begin to enact new forms. Currently, there are four typical forms of writing in most e-journals: the standard research article coded into a single page, the print-like essay or argument cut into sections and linked together (often via a TOC or outline), the hypertext that functions more nonlinearly in terms of its structure, and the hypermedia piece that incorporates newer software into the production of an essay (moving beyond hypertext links and images to the use of movement and sound). Even though early scholarship on hypertext posits a disjunction between print argument and the possibility of argument in hypertext—because print argument is based on linear lines of reasoning (Kolb)—these four forms of writing exhibit the evolution of traditional notions of rhetoric and argumentation into newer forms.

George P. Landow, in Hypertext 2.0, argues that even in nonlinear hypertexts traditional notions of argument still exist in the smaller nodes of text written, and they also exist in the minds of the readers who, in this new medium, are expected to construct the larger arguments from the smaller lexia. Recognizing the link to traditional argument and a more active reader, Sean Williams argues that "persuasion derives from effectively structuring information." Even though web texts often don't follow traditional lines of reasoning, they can, and do, provide the context through which information is evaluated by the reader. Williams sees two key web argument strategies based on this premise: process-product ambiguity, the sense that users have of building the arguments themselves through their own temporal process of navigating the hypertext; and structured dissonance, the careful weaving together of fragments of information by the (hyper)writer in order to set a context that predisposes users to construct the argument in a particular way. In other words, while web-based arguments are more fragmented than most print-based argumentation, they nevertheless regularly construct an implicit line of argument or conclusion to draw.

This is the case, I think, with Enculturation's two contributions to the issue. Cynthia Nichols' piece is on the one hand a standard linear argument coded into a web-page; on the other hand, it incorporates a more multi-vocal use of multimedia. She both follows a line of reasoning and allows for the inclusion of various voices that the reader must negotiate. Likewise, Collin Brooke's Flash piece constructs a linear pathway while at the same time incorporating smaller lexia and quotations that require the inductive/synthesizing power of the reader. His hypertext produces a line in one sense—it constructs a context that moves the reader through the piece—but the reader still has to actively/conceptually construct the final argument from the various lexia. Each of these pieces incorporates traditional argumentative strategies but remakes them in new media contexts. And perhaps most importantly for editors, since the context in which discourse is being placed is moving from "transparent" (Lanham) print textuality to more explicitly designed and visual contexts, editors are playing an even greater role in the communication of content (see my review essay in this issue).

— BH

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