Looking for Linking: Associative Links on the Web

摘要

Non-trivial hypertexts (containing more than one node) use links to implement their internal structure. On the Web navigation bars have become ubiquitous, defining functional regions on a web page that expose a site's primary structure, listing nearby pages or media (home page, next page, previous page, search, related links). By contrast, associative linking takes place in the content regions of Web pages and may be used to interlink related concepts from the domain semantics, expose argumentation structures, add glossary functions or reveal instructional components according to various secondary informational schemas or controlling "applications". In this paper we describe an attempt to identify the latter kind of links on the World Wide Web, as the preliminary stage of recognising and classifying "good" linking practices that go beyond the merely organisational infrastructure common to the Web. These associative linking practises are exemplified by NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) archive, a popular website which illustrates and discusses different astrological phenomena. Each day's text is linked to relevant information from previous days, and also to external educational and scientific Web pages which explain or illustrate any key phrases and technical terms used in the text. The authors of the site explain that each text is "written explicitly to be linked", with the content "constructed as an abstract. with links providing all the detailed or background information required by the various readership profiles."