SHIFTS POWER FROM WRITER TO READER: Hypertext shifts power to the reader and away from the writer. A-linearity, mulitvocality, the melding of the functions of reading and writing when readers and writers are offered the same environment all serve to shift our definitions of what it is to be a reader or a writer. Hypertext has the potential to be the kind of text which requires a more active reader. The ability to link heavily referential texts to their references makes them more accessible to the non-scholar.