The linear model of Introduction, Body, Conclusion of many traditional documents is often inappropriate for the web and other hypertext formats. It's more useful to create a basic “Overview” which then contains links to more detailed or specific information, or to arguments that are secondary to the main aim of the document.

Writing in this hierarchical way can be difficult, as the overview must assume that the reader may or may not read the supporting material, and may at any point jump away from the text.

The latest research shows that some of the most effective hypertexts have links which emphasise both the strongly hierarchical structure, and the interconnections across the hierarchy. This phenomenon is sometimes called Intertwingularity (Morville 2005).