Some scholars write electronic dissertations and articles, and some teach and discuss their work using computers. In this thesis, I will study three examples of how scholars use hypertext to write about literature and film. The word hypertext was first coined by Ted Nelson in the 1960s. The hypertexts I will discuss are published on the World Wide Web. The Web, as it is affectionately nicknamed, is itself a huge hypertext, consisting of many separate but interlinked Web pages.
Web pages are electronic documents that can contain text, images, sound, video and programs.
They are located on individual computers all over the world, and can be read by anyone who has access to a computer connected to the Internet. In each Web page, certain words or phrases are highlighted or underlined. By clicking the mouse on these words, the reader activates or follows a link , thereby calling up a new Web page on her or his screen. In this way the hypertext branches according to the links the reader chooses to follow, as in Nelson's words above. This study is structured around detailed analyses of three concrete Web hypertexts about literature and film.