Abstract

This E-paper discusses the hypothesis that the future of academic writing may be the electronic hypertext in a networked environment. In itself a hypertext written with a still experimental software, called *DISKURS, the 'paper' first discusses what a hypertext is and what new elements it has as compared to the traditional (linear) text. In a next step, a few scenarios with possible applications of hypertexts in academia are presented. We distinguish "hyper(text)books", "hyper(data)bases" and "hyperdiscussions". In the following part of the E-paper, we discuss the benefits and shortcomings of these scenarios on a general level. We conclude that we can expect a series of benefits, in particular with a view to academic communication as well as spread of and access to information. The shortcomings, by contrast, seem rather interim difficulties. Once they are overcome, hypertexting can change the way scholars work and think about their results. In a last step we analyse the factors influencing the possible development from traditional linear texts as we know them today to the envisaged hypertext structures. They fall into three categories: technical, organisational and subject-related ones. We argue that the organisational issues are crucial while subject-related ones play an important role and technical ones are minor, in principle. Finally, we draw some preliminary conclusions for the social sciences based on our main hypothesis. We argue that the social sciences could profit from cyberscience since this development will contribute to a more structured way of doing (social) science.

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