Computers and Composition Computers and Composition 451. Bolter, Jay David. Lawrence Erlbaum, 1991.
Writing is a technology inseparable from the materials and techniques of writing.
Print books make text seem permanent and widen the gap between text and author. Print text must impose a hierarchy on ideas, reducing the typically associative writing process to linear form. Hypertext restores associative composing and requires associative reading through the layering of text. It comprises a network of verbal ideas. Electronic text recalls older forms of literacy, using picture writing in its icons, and restoring the formulaic, associative, and dynamic qualities of oral literature.