Links
- Probably need to split out embedded and other means of presenting content to content links from navigational links. nav links likely follow a different set of rhetorical figures than content links. nav links engage heavily in constructing identity by synechdoche and other figures of similarity and difference. Identity is created in part by exclusion. It is created by creating categories and persuading agents to place themselves in those categories. Much of that rhetorical work is done by the nav elements of web sites. We can see how effective the rhetoric is when users suggest the site is "easy to navigate." That can readily suggest, "I already fit into these groups, and I'm willing to be part of this structure. This becomes a rhetorical critique of UX.
Links suggest (indeterminate) meaningful associations between two pages, a page and another element, a word and another element - between any two elements. The link itself can facilitate visitors making connections between the two. At minimum, the link suggests that the link-maker sees a relation between two elements: that one is an example of, a member of a category of, a continuation of... the other.
Links are indeterminate because visitors are not required to follow or acknowledge a link, nor to follow them in the order presented by the rhetor. Links seem to be always a suggestion, and visitors need to be persuaded to follow them.
What is a link
(adapted from Burbules, Rhetorics of the Web)The link is the elemental structure that represents a hypertext as a semic web of meaningful relations. Every text, or set of texts, can be read hypertextually; this involves the reader making connections within and across texts, sometimes in ways that are structured by the rhetor (for example, following footnotes or quotations), but often in ways determined by the reader.
But in on-line texts, links define a fixed set of relations given to the reader, among which the reader may choose, but beyond which most readers will never go.
Moreover, links establish pathways of possible movement within the web space; they suggest relations, but also control access to information (if there is no link from A to B, for many users the existence of B may never be known - in one sense, the link creates B as possibility).
Links are associative - as differentiated from sequential or hierarchical. They associate this with that. But associative doesn't mean arbitrary. The link is purposeful - and readers will look for a connection between the two ends of the link. The association might be public or more idiosyncratic. If too idiosyncratic, the link risks seeming a non sequitur.
Links establish a relationship between the text or element linked from (source) and the element linked to (target), a relationship mediated by the affordance (the linktext or image that triggers the link), and more or less controlled by the rhetor. Rhetorical tropes can describe the associative relationships between source and target: metaphor, metonymy, identity, synechdoche. BurbulesHandlistOfLinks describes some possible associative relations.
Weblogs, as a genre, may use linking in characteristic ways. LinksInBlogging discusses this.
kinds of links
from Hammerich, p 177ff- navigational
- internal
- external
- embedded
- drill down link takes visitor deeper into the structure
- lateral link takes visitor across the structure, at the same level
Links in the body of the text
- also called contextual links because relation between linked node is dependent on the local context
- typically internal
- primary function is associative: used to gain additional knowledge. but this is laced with rhetorical ends that designate what kind of knowledge is being linked to, and where in the text, and with what prompt to link
- suggestions in the literature that embedded external links establish ethos.
What the Web Content Literature Says
The literature is focused on naturalizing the link: making it disappear from traditional reading practices, rather than developing readers who can navigate better and more critically. As typically presented, the link is not arhetorical - a distraction is rhetorical - but it threatens to move the reader away from the controlled rhetoric of the source into connections and a rhetorical environment that the rhetor cannot control. In short, links create anxiety, so the advice is shaped to neutralize that anxiety. Links mean lost readers, lost attention, lost arguments ... Little attention is paid in the literature to making the source content stronger by the use of links.Links make web content writers anxious. Because they fear losing readers to the link, they use rhetorical techniques to neutralize and naturalize them. The alternatives - to write more engagingly, to write to incorporate and guide the inclusion of linked material - is not considered. In short, if you fear losing readers to links, write better.
References: Nielsen Group, Lynch, Price. See WCW: Make me think about links for links to web content writing sources.
- The link is typically seen as unnecessary, but expected, and a nuisance to the reader that the writer must control.
- The link is implicitly not considered for content so much as to another document. The less said about it, the better.
- Links are not seen as integral to the text.
- Links are not seen as providing a commentary on a text.
- Links are not seen as leading to particular section of a target text but to another document in its entirety. This is a function of the web, which does not typically allow linking to a smaller unit than the document.
The advice
- Write as though there were no link. Very telling.
- Place the link at the end of a sentence - on the predicate. this follows the technical writing dictum of following old - new pattern. The link text appears in the new, and when the link is followed, becomes the old.
- Do not use too many links. no sense of how many is too many.
- No surprises. Write link text so that the reader knows what to expect at the end of the link and so can choose to follow it or not.
Given the advice and conception of links, we would expect certain rhetorical figures to be used commonly, and others to be unused intentionally.
- Figures used would bolster ethos, contiguity, seamlessness (itself a rhetorical construct).
- Link text would not call attention to the presence of the link but would seem to offer "more information." That is, the dominant trope will be the annotation or footnote cast in support of the main text. Annotation and footnote are drawn from the traditionally rhetorically-neutral scholarly paper, but the are not, as typically thought, part of mere documentation. Annotations and footnotes are places where writers present micro-arguments, alternative perspectives, complications that are summarily dismissed as mere footnotes.
- Typical advice suggests that external links build ethos by evidence (here is my evidence) and association (these are those who I'm part of). Less is said about the the link being selective: There is other evidence out there, but inking to that would distract. The link in this case is a token - placed not to strengthen the argument but the ethos of the rhetor. The gesture is similar to that of the lit review paragraph or section of a scholarly paper. The particular figure depends on the particular case. To watch for would be those cases where the rhetor is linking to alternative arguments that are then addressed as inadequate or in need of remediation in her own. "I have read these arguments here, here, and here, and have rejected them for these reasons: ..."
- The rhetor is not going to want to set up an implicit and uncontrolled comparison or alternative to the present pages. Neutral phrasing might permit the reader to do so.
- Placement in the sentence. We should get some analytical mileage out of looking at the syntactical relation of the link text in the sentence. ie: placing the link in a subordinate clause: "If you consider the [usual arguments], then you will see that they overlook x, y, z - which I'm addressing on this page." The link is subordinate to the main line of the sentence, which is in the predicate and emphatic position. Too, the sentence primes the reader to interpret the target arguments in a particular way. The figure? Some kind of figure of the conditional and typicality, and a gesture of politeness: compare phrasing as "usual arguments" rather than "typical nonsense." The figure used in phrasing the link categorizes the target material as unimportant - background for the more substantive argument presented. The position in the sentence reinforces that.
- That the presence of a link or set of links is selective will generally be ignored or concealed by the use of a figure that suggests completeness or inclusion. Selectivity when it appears will be to bolster ethos: "I have looked at more than these links and have selected this one as all you need." The sense that the link is created to challenge an assertion will be rare.
- ...
Projects
- We can develop projects that start with a genre of page and look at how the links are used. Consider rhet sit, especially the construction of the implied reader. Ditto one writer on a blog, or one set of links on a site.
- We can develop projects that look for frequency of use and distribution of use of a particular figure or set of figures: how rhetors neutralize difference, how they show it ...
- We can look at violations of mainstream advice, such as the use of [here].
- We can look more closely at how linking as practiced, and linking as presented as practice, shapes the implied reader: one who is not interested in reading, easily distracted and overwhelmed, unable to make choices, or one who is too able to think and so threatens the intended conclusion by considering alternative perspectives ... We can see if readers are defining themselves this way - which would be curious and a little shocking. In the same vein, we can consider what alternatives rhetors have to re-shape the behavior of actual readers by re-casting the implied reader.
CategoryNotes
