THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

OF HYPERTEXT

I. CONCEPTS OF HYPERTEXT

Bush, who is known as the grandfather of hypertext introduce a system called

Memory Extender. The memory extender is a device which was created based on

microfilm and eye-tracking technology to enable

users to follow cross-references with ease. It is

mechanized and consulted with exceeding speed

and flexibility that individual stores books, records

and communications. In a meantime, Bush

noticed that massive scientific information was

increasing more rapidly that leads the people

more difficult to follow the information. He

envisaged that the memory extender should be

developed. Nelson, one of the pioneers of the hypertext who coined the term “hypertext”

stimulated Bush’s idea by creating a project of a single on-line database of the entire

literacy corpus of the world called xanadu. Nelson’s Xanadu was design based on a

combination of back end and local databases, which enables fast response for most

hypertext access. It allow us to expand the notion of the text to include not only texts

and pictures as in printed texts, but also sound, music, animation and video in a single

hypertext system.
 Nowadays, hypertext’s system have been developed and marketed include Note

Cards developed Xerox PARC, and KMS from knowledge system, Inc., Guide from

OWL International, Asymetrix Multimedia, Tool Book from Asymetrix Corporation and

Hyper ties system. Hartoyo (2012: 9)

1.1 What is Hypertext?

Hypertext has been defined as “an approach to information management in

which data is stored in a network of nodes connected by links ; see figure 1. Nodes can

contain text, graphics, audio, video as well as source code or other forms of data.”

Smith & Weiss (1988).

The basic units of information are called nodes and the ways of establishing and

indicating the possible connections between the nodes are called links. A hypertext link

connects an anchor node with a destination node and is often associated with specific

parts of any of the nodes. Figure 1, which is a modified view of Nielsen (1990, p. 1),

shows a small hypertext structure which has six nodes and nine links. Once users start

by reading the text marked A, the hypertext structure gives two options: B or D.

Assuming that users decide to go to B, they can then jump to C or to E, and from E they

can go to C or to F. Many more different paths, of course, can be created than the paths

this example shows.

 FIGURE 1

Example of a Hypertext Structure

1.2 Hypertext Application

Some of hypertext Applications is listed below:

1. Business

Hypertext system in business are as follows:

 Product catalogues and advertisement.

 Organizational charts and policy manual.
 Annual reports and orientation guides.
 Resumes/CVs and biographies.
 Treaties, contracts, and wills.
 News letters and new magazines.
 Software documentation and code.
2. Information resources

As information sources, ICT through hypertext can be found in:

 Encyclopedias, glossaries and dictionaries.

 Medical and legal reference books.
  Religious and literacy annotations.
 Collages catalogues and department guides.
 Travel and restaurant guides.
 Scientific journals, abstracts and indexes.

3. Personal Learning

In case personal learning, hypertext system allows anyone to:

 Produce and disseminate instruction and explanation.

 Repair and maintenance manuals.
 Time lines and geographical map.
 On-lines help and technical documentation.
 Cookbook and home –repair manuals.
 Mysteries, fantasies and joke books
 Hyper novels and hyper poems.

4. Application of Hypertext in Education

 The hypertext system that used in education is Computer Assisted

Learning (CAL), is due to its interactive capability and flexibility. Since

hypertext is non-sequential system, it allows the users or students to

reads any topic without reading from the first topic. Moreover, for the

teacher, hypertext allows them to expand the text including pictures,

sound, music, animation and video.

5. Hypertext in language learning

 Hypertext system can be implemented in learning of all langue skills –

listening, speaking, reading and writing. and also the language component

such as vocabulary and grammar. However, the application of hypertext in

learning grammar shows the best and most successful result.

II. THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF HYPERTEXT

2.1 THE ADVANTAGES

According to Conklin in Hartoyo (2012: 11), There are 9 advantages of hypertext that

can be summarized as follows:

1. Easy of tracing references.

The machine support for link tracing means all references are equally

easy to follow forward to their references are equally easy to follow

forward to their references;

2. Easy of creating new references.

Here the users can create their own network, or simply annotate someone

else’s document with a comment but without changing the referenced

document.

3. Information structuring.

Both hierarchical and non hierarchical organization can be imposed on

unstructured information; even multiple hierarchies can organize the

material;
4. Global views.

The browser provide table of contents style views supporting easier

restructuring of a large or complex document; global and local views (node

or page) can be mixed effectively.

5. Customized document.

The text segment can be threaded together, allowing the same document

to serve multi functions.

6. Modularity of Information.

Since the same text segment can be referenced from several places,

ideas can be expressed with less overlap and duplication.

7. Consistency of information.

References are embedded in their text, and if text is moved, even to

another document, the link information still provides direct access to the

references.

8. Task stacking.

The user is supported in having several paths of inquiry active and

displayed on the screen at the same time, so that any given path can be

unwound to the original task;

9. Collaboration

Several author can collaborate, with the document and commands about

the document being tightly interwoven. (the exploration of this feature has

just begun).
2.2 THE DISADVANTAGES:

There is a problem that may rise in using of hypertext:

1. Disoriented. Due to the complexity of hypertext structures, the users might

have difficulties in understanding where they are and in deciding where to go

next. The hypertext system, therefore, needs to provide a clear access

structure and means for recovery to help the users through interactive

information-seeking activities. In other words, hypertext should offer a

supportive environment in which the users can access and retrieve

information, find their own paths while browsing and navigating, and expand

webs of information without getting lost in working through it. (Conklin, 1987in

Hartoyo, 2012).

III. THE STRENGTH AND THE WEAKNESS

The strength, and the weakness, of this sort of hypertext is its reliance on

narrative, that is, on storytelling. The essence of the hypertext experience is

fragmentation -- experiencing little bits of text which give the overt opportunity

to go to one of several 'next pages' but which do have the effect of breaking

narratival flow. Most of the narratival techniques which have been devised

over centuries of literacy, and earlier over millennium of oral storytelling are

no longer much help.

 They all depended upon one person, a storyteller or narrator, being in charge

of 'what happens next', pacing and manipulating the story to keep the

audience interested. It is an enormous volume of physical work, not to

mention very difficult, it is to construct two or three dramatically and

structurally sound stories keeping a unifying style. Imagine then the difficulty

to do that with with the twenty or fifty or 3600 generated in a branching fiction.

To make something that dragged the viewer along like a ripping novel does

would be a feat of superhuman virtuosity. Little wonder, then, that in practice

the traditional hypertextists tend to stick to a strategy of multi-viewpoints on

the same central story.

http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Hypertext

IV REFERENCES

Hartoyo. 2012. ICT & information Communication Technology in Language Learning.

Pelita Insani Press. Semarang.

http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/rt/printerFriendly/628/549#d3

http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Hypertext
http://www.a-website.org/hyperessays/04hyper.html

https://www.google.com/search?q=[Smith+%26+Weiss%2C+1988].&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-

8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-beta&channel=fflb

Nielsen, 1990. Nielsen, Jakob. Hypertext/Hypermedia. Academic Press, 1990.

Son, J.-B. (1998). Understanding hypertext: A discussion for TEFL. English Teaching, 53 (3),
113-124.