Hypertext, a term coined by Theodor H. Nelson in the 1960s, refers to (1) a form of electronic text, (2) a radically new information technology, and (3) a mode of publication. "By 'hypertext," Nelson explains

I mean non-sequential writing -- text that branches and allows choices to the reader, best read at an interactive screen. As popularly conceived, this is a series of text chunks connected by links which offer the reader different pathways.

Nelson invented the term hypertext but not the basic concept, for he draws upon the idea of a memory extender that Vannevar Bush had proposed two decades before.