The structures of ideas are not sequential. They tie together every which-way. And when we write, we are always trying to tie things together in non-sequential ways. . . . Hypertext at last offers the possibility of representing and exploring it all without carving it up destructively. Abstractly speaking, in hypertext the discrete units of text with multiple connecting links compose a differently connected textual space.
Points can be near on one path, far apart on another.
Links can be one-way or allow travel in both directions. Paths through the space can be linear, looping, branching, or intersecting. There is no reason to think that there is one essential or best way to use hypertext, any more than there is one essential or best way to use paper. Linear writing can produce laundry lists, thank-you notes, scholarly treatises, disjointed jottings on the backs of train schedules, love letters, instruction manuals for VCRs, romance novels, and countless other texts whose forms and purposes have little in common. We can imagine how hypertext might help or alter activities that we already perform with ordinary text, but it is harder to imagine what new activities or uses might develop.