Wiki-WOW

So, we're checking out Wikipedia right now. Our assignment is to study it, NOT use it. I found that quite challenging, I must say. So much information is hidden behind embedded links.

That makes me question the style or structure of writing on the Internet. Relating to my earlier ponderance (ponderation, ponderosa) of how we surf, I want to examine how we write on the web. We learned in high school English class to construct the Five-Paragraph Essay. Quite a feat. I found it formulaic and unexciting and therefore didn't do quite as well as I should have in high school English. It wasn't until later that I realized it is like modern dance to ballet. You must know the basics before you can deviate from them.

Now, do web writers exclude supporting details in their online essays in favor of links? Does this add or detract from the essay-at-hand? Sending us down a linkpath may give us more information than we need. Is this laziness on the part of the author, who could narrow down all the supporting information to include only the most relevant? Or is it generosity on the writer's part to have researched valuable online resources to give the interested reader even greater information? Links may have replaced footnotes in the essay. The destinations of those links may be considered immediate bibliographies. Gone are the days when we flip to the end of an article to learn what source material was used and head on out to the library to find those books. With one click, we can now gain immediate access to those resources. Yes, you may still have to head to the library to read the actual books (online libraries notwithstanding) but you can achieve the satisfaction (and pleasure) of instant access to supplementary information.

Links within an article also compromise the author's viewpoint. Once we go outside the confines of the article, we are subject to any number of other opinions and definitions, even within specifically chosen support documents. So, is it possible, in an article with embedded links, to fully grasp an author's intentions?