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- Hypertext Construction -- SEMANTIC TAXONOMIES <sum06 1 11>
- =============================================
-
- I see the construction of hypertext as the building of "semantic
- taxonomies." <link56> Here's why.
-
- To me, SEMANTICS means:
-
- (1) FIND IDEAS -- In a body of knowledge, can you find all the
- ideas regardless of how they are expressed?
-
- (2) NAME IDEAS -- Can you create a controlled vocabulary to
- represent each of the contained ideas?
-
- (3) LINK IDEAS -- Can you link reoccurring ideas together
- regardless of where they occur in the information?
-
- To me, TAXONOMY means:
-
- (4) STRUCTURE IDEAS -- Can you classify all the ideas in ways
- that are intuitively obvious to people regardless of their
- knowledge of the subject. <link33>
-
- Furthermore ... (Press PgDn)
- (5) CROSS-LINK IDEAS -- Can you make your constructed taxonomy
- a multi-axis taxonomy, allowing users to reach their
- desired information from any starting fragment? <link32>
-
- (6) DEFINE IDEAS -- Do your indexed ideas include a description
- of boundaries, meaning adjacent ideas, component parts,
- and the super-sets they belong to. <link57>
-
- The results?
- ============
-
- I believe such semantic taxonomies (which show the conceptual
- dependencies within information) are the best way to represent and
- communicate the contained knowledge. <link28>
-
- The value of information lies in how it is organized
- ====================================================
-
- In one phrase, knowledge is information with structure. <link43>
-
- Semantic taxonomies provide an unmistakably clear method of helping
- users rapidly navigate complex systems of information, without prior
- knowledge of the goals, subject, or retrieval process. That's why
- they are fundamental to understanding hypertext.