Growing up, I didn’t find breaking apart words to define them helpful for understanding their meanings. However, I used this strategy to define the term intertextuality, used in digital writing. The prefix “inter” refers to connection or interaction, “text” refers to written or spoken material, and “uality” suggests something that ties together. By combining these parts, I define intertextuality as the relationship between texts, or how two different texts may relate to or contrast with each other.
Doug Eyman frequently mentions this term in his piece, Defining and Locating Digital Rhetoric. He theorizes about intertextuality and explains how it creates relationships between different forms of text. Eyman describes how printed and digital texts serve distinct purposes, conveying unique messages and themes. Through this distinction, he establishes a framework for what we often call digital rhetoric.
Digital rhetoric uses rhetorical tools like ethos, pathos, and logos in online writing spaces. Writers can also use digital rhetoric as a way to stimulate thought through digital sources. According to Oxford Languages, rhetoric is “the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing.” In simpler terms, rhetoric reflects the author’s purpose—the reason behind their writing or speaking. Whether the goal is to entertain, persuade, or inform, authors always write with intention.
These two terms guide the approach to digital writing. Intertextuality shows how texts connect with or oppose one another, while digital rhetoric personalizes the writing used to compare or contrast those texts. In his work, Eyman cites Barbara Warnick, who emphasizes the unique nature of web-based texts. She states, “the nature of Web-based texts is in many ways very different from that of print texts and monologic speech, many of the models that have been conventionally used by rhetorical critics and analysts will need to be adjusted for the Web environment” (121). Warnick challenges rhetorical critics to adapt as internet writing evolves. The internet supports a vast array of purposes and enables countless forms of writing. Each is shaped by the dynamic nature of the medium.
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