When thinking of associating different ideas in a hypertextual world, the concepts of links, networks, and nodes arise.

Nodes:

Nodes, or nodal points, are chunks--blocks of ideas--contained within their own page, chapter, book, or computer screen. The size of nodes is determined by their context. For hypertext documents, a typical node is considered to be a screen’s worth of text. Other examples are a book in a library, a website on the internet, and each page in this website. But nodes can communicate through more than the printed word: the text in a node can take the form of verbal text, or sound and pictures -- basically anything that effectively transmits the message that’s embedded within the node.

Networks:

A network is simply a collection of nodes, linked together to form a collection of texts. A school textbook is an example of a network. This site is also an example of a network. George Landow describes a network as "one kind of electronically linked electronic equivalent to a printed text." He also uses the term lexia to refer to a block of text, similar to a node. For Landow, a network is "any gathering of lexias, whether assembled by the original author of the verbal text, or by some [one] else gathering together texts created by multiple authors..."

Links:

Given that nodes are texts contained within a network, how do you navigate between nodes? This is where the link becomes important. Think of a link as flipping to the endnote section of an academic text, or skipping to the footnote. In a hypertextual environment, this is enabled by a hotlink or a reference link. There appear to be four varieties of link class. The variety being used here is the referential link. As the name implies, the link refers us to a different node of text, which is akin to flipping a page in an essay or textbook.

Once a collection of nodes has been linked together and formed into a network, the paper text seems limited by comparison. Once we move into the hypertext document there is a definite difference between what Roland Barthes terms as the readerly text and the writerly text.