An all too didactic example of a link.

For instance, that was one there. Was there any reason to click on it? For the reader, perhaps the best reason would be that he or she was bored with the line of argument in the referring page and was willing to do anything to get away from it. And for the writer? Linking is similar to parenthesis or footnotes where an aside gets embedded into the central argument but in such a way that we still can easily discern what the central argument is. But it's also lip-service to a set of expectations. Just as in genre literature (romance novels, detective stories) the reader has the right to expect certain plot developments, so in a webbed environment authors aren't fulfilling their function properly if they don't provide ample opportunities to click on links (like those that lead back to the central argument) even if they all link back to the same page.

Go to: Shall I Compare Thee to a Printed Page?