Stalking the paratext: speculations on hypertext links as a second order text

In the popular conception of hypertext as nonlinear writing, primary emphasis typically falls on the construction, character, and quantity of constituent lexias that comprise any given hypertext. This paper, however, will focus on what the text would reveal if an ordered collection were made of the links emerging from the main (first order) text. Such a collection, as a second order text or parallel text, which I propose to call the paratext, comprises the layerworld of links, of intertextual referents that could be subjected to cluster analyses that reveal aspects of cohesion, breadth, and other speculative characteristics of the first order text.