What James posted was not an article. It was a well reasoned but impromptu response to an article. He did not compose his response in a word processor that includes a spelling checker among its features. Instead, he entered text into a no-frills text-entry field.

James participated respectfully in this conversation as a thoughtful, engaged, and concerned professional with something to contribute. There is no harm in that and there is no call for derision.

4th paragraph: instruictional
7th paragraph: let’ss
9th paragraph: ocntent

various: on-line and online

In our business, credibility goes down the drain if we have misspelled words! I finally gave up reading–too many errors!

To get to the core of the issue, the author is confusing the INSTRUCTIONAL delivery medium and the PHYSICAL delivery medium.

Simply put, there is the nature, structure, and organization of the content to be delivered which is based on what the author and readers’ intents are, and the physical form used to deliver it.

For example, a tutorial is inherently linear, as it guides the user specifically through a series of tasks that must be completed in a certain order. This is the instruictional delivery medium. This tutorial could be delivered in print (in a book), in print form on-line (aquired via the internet as a PDF that is meant to be printed out), on-screen (from a disk included in the purchased package), or “online” over the internet.

Long ago, the distinction was smaller. For example, if you wanted to show a complex conceptual process, “video” was ideal. But what was video? It was moving pictures with audio explanation. About the only way to deliver this was on videotape. Hence, when you said “video,” the instructional and physical delivery media were inextricably intertwined.

As it became easier (and eventually cheaper) to create and distribute “video” in an “online” (on-screen) way, people began to see “video” as meaning more of the instructional delivery of pictures and audio, and were able to separate out the physical medium.

(Things get a little sticky here when we talk about audio, because audio is merely text that is delivered in a different physical medium — via sound waves instead of as text on a printed page or on a screen. But let’ss not get distracted.)

Thus, the issue of “linearity” describes how a user ACCESSES the content from an instructional standpoint, and how the author intends for it to be accessed based on the author’s understanding of the user’s needs.

If the author is creating a tutorial, the ocntent will likely be highly linear. If the author is creating a reference, such as a dictionary, the content will be hghly non-linear, and arranged for rapid, random-access.

Like video, “online” (meaning “web-based”) has evolved over time. It has come to mean “via the internet,” and the implication attached to this is that is means “highly non-linear.”

However, with the ability to stream “video” over the internet, as well as with the drive to use web-style (browser-based) help systems that are shipping on a disk with a product, once again the distinction between the instructional medium and the physical medium has become more clear.

Thus, if the author wishes to distinguish between linear and non-linear, then call them that. If the author wishes to distinguish between things that appear on-screen but are accessed locally (from user’s disk) versus non-locally (via the internet), then make that distinction. If the author wishes to distinguish between print and on-screen, then do so.

But to suggest that there be a distinction between “linear” and Web-based is to suggest something that makes no sense, because the vast majority of people, if asked if a printed dictionary is “web-based” would reply that of course it is not. This is becasue “web-based” originally meant, and to most people still does mean, “internet-accessed and viewed on-screen in a browser.”

To put it another way, ocntent on the web can be linear, and print can be non-linear (which the author essentially defines as “web-based”).

While I applaud the author for identifying a problem that can lead to significant misunderstanding, I would recommend reconsidering the proposed solution. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but if you called it a daisy, nobody would smell it, because you have misled and confused the reader.