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Links Policy
The nature of writing in our postmodern, electronic culture is rapidly
changing, in part due to advances in hypertext theory and technology.
While Kairos is dedicated to promoting the use of the
hypertextual World-Wide Web in writing instruction, this journal will
also promote such writing through its own structure and style. To
further these goals, and to aid in the production process, the
Kairos staff offers the following guidelines for hypertexts
submitted.
While it is difficult to determine what number and types of links
are appropriate for hypertexts in general, all links should
contribute to the possible meanings and readings of the texts.
Linking for the sake of linking is discouraged.
There are many styles to hypertextual writing, but Kairos
encourages the submission of "native hypertexts" that utilize
multiple internal nodes as well as links to outside resources.
That is, we seek hypertextually composed works rather
than broken up linear texts.
Authors should attempt to make clear where links are going so that
readers may make informed navigational decisions. This can often be
done by linking from descriptive phrases rather than individual words.
For more on this matter, read the
Links
Editor's Logging On column in issue 1.3.
For authors who wish to use technology to better describe the destination
of their links, we can recommend onMouseOver coding that can be placed within
any linking tag. With this tool, you can provide a brief description of links at the
bottom of the browser instead of their URLs. You can examine the source code of
this example link for the proper formatting
Links to external nodes should point, to the best of the author's
knowledge, to stable sites and resources. Since back issues of
Kairos will be available in our archives, we must strive
to make all links as current and accurate as possible. Authors
might consider contacting the authors of pages they link to in
hopes of determining such stability.
Care should be given in linking to commercial sites in order to
avoid promoting any particular companies or their products. If
links must be made to commercial sites for the purposes of the
hypertext, they should be made to informational documents rather
than sales pages when possible.
Since we have no control over external sites to which you may link,
broken links and "404" errors are likely to occur eventually. In order to prepare for such
problems, authors should include an "External Links Page" that lists, node-by-node,
the destinations and purposes for each off-Kairos link. Examples of this
page may be seen in the 2.1 work of Brent
and Browning.
For the sake of production, the following link elements should
be included in all Kairos texts:
Shortcut links should be used wherever possible for internal links.
That is, instead of an entire URL path, just the minimal path
and/or filename is used. (e.g. <a href="index.html">) This
will aid in archiving efforts.
Links to resources beyond Kairos should be coded
to appear in the right frame. Such "outside" resources include elements
that were not composed for the Kairos hypertext, such
as web sites pointed to as examples, individual homepages, examples
of student or professional writing, etc. Sending such links to the right
frame is done by including the code TARGET="LINK" in the outbound URL tag.
(e.g. <A HREF="http://bsuvc.bsu.edu/~00gjsiering/index.html"
TARGET="LINK">Greg Siering's homepage</a>.)
For examples, see the OWL Cover Web in Kairos
1.1.
"mailto:" tags to the author should be included at the bottom of
each page.
Questions about incorporating these guidelines into hypertexts can be addressed to the Section Editor for your work or to one of the Co-Editors of the journal.
Not every hypertext will be the same--that's part of its attraction--
so these guidelines are offered as just that: guidelines. The Editors will work closely with the editorial board and hypertext authors
to ensure submitted works conform to the spirit of theseprinciples.
If you have any questions concerning this policy or hypertexts you
wish to submit to Kairos, please contact Co-Editors
James Inman and Douglas Eyman < kairosed@technorhetoric.net > |
