Jon Udell on hyperlinks vs footnotes
” Nick Carr’s essay in the current Atlantic Monthly crystallizes a lot of what I’ve been feeling for a couple of years about how our use of the Net is changing us. Not co-incidentally I read the essay in the printed magazine whose non-hypertextuality I experienced as a feature, not a bug. (Nick writes: “Unlike footnotes, to which they’re sometimes likened, hyperlinks don’t merely point to related works; they propel you toward them.”
…Part of the answer is to develop — and teach — strategies that enable us to graze on the information commons in the most effective ways. I work hard at that.
But we also need strategies that enable us to retreat from that commons, and to experience sustained attention, deep reading, and quiet contemplation.”
Hyper footnotes might be a nice way to format online work requiring actual thought.
Basically instead of putting hyperlinks within content you make footnotes as per paper, but those are hyperlinks instead.