Jutta Degener
Hypercyber...
What is good hypertext writing?
What is good hypertext writing?
There is more to writing than putting words next to each other,
and there is more to writing hypertext than throwing together
a bunch of links. When writing text, I have certain
goals; when I come across text I dislike, there are certain
reasons why I do not like it.
You're about to read an attempt to describe these reasons and
goals; it is incomplete, subjective, and honest.
Writing hypertext copy
The two pitfalls of writing hypertext
copy are links and emotions.
Links are a new stylistic element that
writers must learn to handle.
The emotional problem is harder: we must snap out of
the "host" or "provider" role, must get away from
the excitement of guiding another person through the
text, and get back to - just writing.
Editing and publishing
Editing doesn't necessarily
happen after the first text has been written, but it
deserves to be thought of as an independent discipline.
Most of what people do on the
World-Wide Web is really editing, not writing.
Maintenance
"This document is under construction."
Of course it is.
The World-Wide Web is changing; new browsers
appear; the language HTML changes; people change jobs
and homepages; and writers learn more about their
subject.
Appendix: Dangerous words
Related material
Last update April 1998, Jutta Degener,
<jutta@pobox.com>,
originally published at www.cs.tu-berlin.de/~jutta/ht/writing.html.