Sosnoski reading

There were a few things that I took from the Sosnoski reading. I thought that it was interesting how the author had broken down the characteristics of hyper text reading, and later elaborated on the details of each characteristic. I guess this caught my attention because I had never thought of the internet as a structured text before this article. The author indeed proves that, while indeed more freeform, the internet has a unique structure with a quite useful purpose. Sosnoski described hyper-reading with eight different terms, the most intersting of which I found to be filtering, skimming, pecking, and imposing.

From the time a student begins his/her first literature class, he/she is taught to not only read the whole text in order but to also infer certain intentions that the author had. This form suggests something different though. According to the author hyper-readers filter out a higher degree of the information available. This leads to a sort of skim reading, which goes against everything I have been taught in formal reading. Some types of hyper-reading trespass into what the author calls pecking, a sort of grab bag mentality of picking and choosing peices of information. Doing this causes the reader to then impose his/her own intention for the text. According to what my previous instructors have said, an author has or should have a specific purpose in mind before and while writing, and to say that the reader can extract tidbits here and there and construct his/her own purpose seems a bit off for me. I guess that is why Sosnoski's seventh charcteristic of hyper-reading is de-authorizing. It is definitely different to see a work as just mere information than a form of expression of purpose.

Although this form of reading may seem sort of forbidden to me, I definitly see its benefits. For instance, to even write his essay Sosnoski had to research many different scholar's opinions on his subject. In this way hyper-reading becomes very useful. To read completely through all of these works would be exhausting, time consuming and unnecessary. Instead one could use hyper-reading by means of a search engine to obtain vast amounts of information a whole lot quicker than has ever been possible through written forms. The problem with this as the author demonstrates is that the author plays less and less of a role in interpretating the purpose for this information. This also opens the gates plagiarism to run rampant.
I believe that through all of the pitfalls that are attached to hyper-reading it has a definite purpose. As Sosnoski alludes to, I think that with a little educated coaching through the process hyper-reading can be a valuable asset to the multiple forms of text.