Week Two - Topic 1g: Non-linear, Non-sequential Reading and Writing

What do you understand by ‘non-linear, non-sequential reading and writing?’ Does it capture the experience of the Web?

Lister et al; page 27

The World Wide Web is essentially related to links and activity of web pages.
I found understanding Non-linear and non-sequential reading and writing easier after thinking about linear and sequential reading and writing. Lister et al say that a books author writes their thoughts / knowledge in an order which can be followed in a similar understanding by the reader.

However, web based reading can provide hyperlinks which offer the viewer to go to another webpage. In these circumstances, reading and writing is non-linear and non-sequential as the viewer chooses in which order they wish to receive the information.

Micheal Joyce suggests using hypertext is reading and writing in and order chosen by the viewer. The viewers choices compose the existing position of the text, rather than the authors representations or the initial staging of the information. Therefore the information may be written originally in a sequential fashion but the viewing is non-linear / non-sequential as it is down to the viewers choices. (Notes Toward an Unwritten Non-Linear Electronic Text, "The Ends of Print Culture", Postmodern Culture, Vol 2 Issue 1, 1991)

I think that non-linear, non-sequential reading and writing does capture the experience of the Web in terms of the vastness of it. A book, for example, contains a certain amount of information and for other opinions / theories / more information another book would have to be found. The Web on the other hand contains all of the information in some shape or form. A hyperlink allowing the viewer to look at a different site broadens the amount of information easily and readily available to the viewer, which is a fundamental experience of the Web.