Thus hypertext is said to shift the balance of power away from author to reader, from singleness to plurality of discourse. Sections of text and other elements online, linked by electronic pathways. Since the reader may choose which links to follow the reader becomes in part a writer of the hypertext. A hypertext presentation of a novel might include a map of the city in which it is set, accounts of historical events or people mentioned, pictures, critical commentaries, earlier versions of the novel, film treatments, links to the author's other novels. Hypertext systems in education are said to offer students greater opportunity for designing their own learning, e.g., by requiring choice of pathways, or participation through the contribution of texts of their own.
Authority is transferred to the student from the teacher.
Examples of such learning also show that other pedagogical practices besides the use of hypertext may be required, especially where the electronic medium is used to promote collaboration or group projects. But the larger scale linearity of the printed book disappears in hypertext. Hypertext is essentially a network of links between words, ideas and sources that has neither a centre nor an end. If any document can be linked to any other, following the links is always to digress. The playful skipping from text to text suggested by the postmodern view of text as a play of signs.