ShmoopTube

00:04

[Dino and Coop singing]

00:13

At first glance, print texts and digital texts might seem pretty similar. [Book next to a computer screen]

00:18

After all, they've both got text aids like titles and subtitles, and font styles like

00:22

bold and italics, as well as all sorts of non-text stuff, like photographs, illustrations, [The text aids being demonstrated]

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charts, and maps.

00:28

However, when it comes to digital texts, there's often more than meets the eye. [Computer approaches a big eyeball]

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Like laser cannons and… [Computer shooting a laser cannon]

00:35

…What?

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There aren't laser cannons? [Stop sign appears]

00:38

…Man, what a letdown.

00:39

Okay, so what are the actual differences? [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

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Well, the paragraphs in digital texts tend to be a bit shorter than those in print texts. [Two different paragraphs being measured by a tape measure]

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This is partly because reading online generally requires a lot of scrolling, and the smaller [Someone scrolling on an iPad]

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the chunks of information are, the easier they are to digest. [Chunks of text going into someones stomach]

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Also, books don't have to compete with YouTube in the next tab, so better to keep things

00:58

short and sweet if you want your audience to stick around. [Person clicks onto a cat video]

01:01

One big tech innovation that digital texts sometimes have is hover text. [Dino pointing at a blackboard]

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If you're reading a regular old book and you come across an unfamiliar word…

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you'll have to walk all the way to a bookshelf to pull out one of those back-breakingly [Man walking in a library]

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heavy dictionaries.

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There's gotta be a better way, right? [Man is crushed by the dictionary]

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That's where hover text comes in.

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Sometimes a technical or advanced word is highlighted…

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…and if you move your cursor over the highlighted word…

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…then BOOM!

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A little bit of text, containing either a definition or explanation of the term, pops [The definition appears]

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up for you to read.

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Digital text: it cares about your back.

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Digital texts also have hyperlinks, which are links to other files or documents related [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

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to the digital text.

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They're often some mix of bold or underlined, which makes 'em stand out on the page. [Giant arrows pointing the a word]

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We can see this in action on this page about kennels on the Denali National Park website….a

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website we're sure you visit at least once a day.

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Say we scroll down the page, to the bit that says: "Learn more about visiting Denali with [The hyperlink at the bottom of the page]

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a pet."

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Since that bit of text is in bold and underlined, we can tell it's probably a hyperlink, and

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if we click on it…

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…then what do you know, it leads us to another article that teaches us more about visiting [The hyperlink is clicked and the new page appears]

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Denali with a pet!

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With all these perks it's no wonder that digital texts are really catching on. [Evil looking computer saying bye to the book]

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But that doesn't mean books are doomed! [The book explodes]

02:08

After all, it's still nice to have something to rest your laptop on. [Man with his laptop on a pile of books]

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