Reading paths

In print, reading order is pretty determinate. While readers don't have to read a text message in the order presented - top to bottom, left to right, first page to next - rhetors write with a determinate order, a sequence, in mind. And so the message can build, progress from part to part, paragraph to paragraph. Some texts, such as formal arguement and narratives, depend on determinate sequence for their effect and meaning.

On the web, reading sequence becomes indeterminate. Reading becomes a matter of making choices. Messages can suggest paths thorough the document by placing and naming links. But the visitor can follow any number of paths, and may follow multiple paths.

It's by the movement through the text that a visitor comes to construct a sense of the message, the rhetor, and the roles the visitor is being encouraged to play. And movement comes by way of following links.

Links