As readers move through a web or network of texts, they continually shift the center -- and hence the focus or organizing principle -- of their investigation and experience. Hypertext, in other words, provides an infinitely re-centerable system whose provisional point of focus depends upon the reader, who becomes a truly active reader in yet another sense. One of the fundamental characteristics of hypertext is that it is composed of bodies of linked texts that have no primary axis of organization. In other words, the metatext or document set -- the entity that describes what in print technology is the book, work, or single text -- has no center. Although this absence of a center can create problems for the reader and the writer, it also means that anyone who uses hypertext makes his or her own interests the de facto organizing principle (or center) for the investigation at the moment. One experiences hypertext as an infinitely de-centerable and re-centerable system, in part because hypertext transforms any document that has more than one link into a transient center, a directory document that one can employ to orient oneself and to decide where to go next.

George P. Landow, Professor of English and Art History, Brown University

The deconstructive principles of Jacques Derrida are finally taking hold. Hypertext revolves around no center. There is no central place to find meaning. We review meaning and we add to meaning, just as I am adding my own thoughts to the quote, or hyperbyte, above. On this page, my words are presented with the same authority as the words that I am quoting. Essentially there is no difference between the text of the reviewer and the text that is reviewed as both are just arbitrary bits of information. Hypertext, in other words, provides an infinitely re-centerable system whose provisional point of focus depends upon the reader, who becomes a truly active reader in yet another sense. The reader must continually judge the value of the information presented and must determine its validity and authority and so the reader is constantly put into the role of reviewer. Hypertext, in other words, provides an infinitely re-centerable system whose provisional point of focus depends upon the reader, who becomes a truly active reader in yet another sense. The reader is thrust into a continual self-competition as competing self interests fight for control of the mouse and which link will be clicked. Hypertext, in other words, provides an infinitely re-centerable system whose provisional point of focus depends upon the reader, who becomes a truly active reader.

Joe A. Farbrook, Researcher of English and Education, Colorado University