Essay 2
“Although you cannot change my text, you can write a response and then link it to my document. You thus have read the readerly text in two ways not possible with a book: You have chosen your reading path - and since you, like all readers, will choose individualised paths, the hypertext version of this book might take a very different form in your reading, perhaps suggesting the values of alternative routes.” (The rhetoric of hypermedia: Some rules for authors, George P. Landow) What Landow had written is self-contradictory. His very own words, “you cannot change”, “ you... a response…link it to my document”, show that no matter what the reader thinks, he or she is still ultimately unable to change the hypertext. The reader can only write about what he or she thinks and then link it back to his text. The reader cannot change Landow’s text regardless of their interpretations. Furthermore, the way the reader thinks is actually the way Landow wants him or her to think. Generally, the reader has limited knowledge of the ideas and topics of the author. What the reader can do is to read the whole text, try to understand and picture the whole scenario. The reader is unable to question and challenge the author’s point of view unless the reader has done in-depth research into the topic. Most readers just accept what is being written, while trying to understand.
