Jorn Barger, in HyperContent, HyperJunk - Hypertext Theory as if the WWWeb Matters, examines the varieties of hypertext:
The primary advantage of hypertext over other formats is in keeping extra detail in the background. - Other uses for hypertext include: multi-path fiction, adding suspense by delaying info display, annotating texts, collecting diverse documents into 'anthologies', separating novice-level material from advanced material.He continues his discussion on an additional linked page that adds numerous examples.
This footnote on a footnote aspect of hypertext is alluded to by David Reinking, in Me and my hypertext, who sees "multiple digressions (e.g., repeated inclusion of parenthetical content" as a defining attribute of hypertext:
It's the type of reading many of us occasionally experience when looking up something in the encyclopedia. On the way to looking up one topic we find ourselves digressing to other related or sometimes marginally related topics. (digress1.htm)Of course the second half of this page could have been a link to the first half, but that would have been belaboring the point already.
Go to: Yet another definition
... with an example of itself?, or
Go to: If we really still need a definition...,
or
Go to: The granddaddy of them all, or
Go to: Prove you're not making
all this up