The ground breaking Postmodern Culture, originally published by the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, was the first fully online peer-reviewed journal for the humanities. However, outside of a small number of special issues, notably one on hypertext in 1997, and another on cinema in 1999, the majority of content published in this journal has maintained the canonical linear form of the humanities' academic essay.

On the other hand a Web based publication such as the Journal for Interactive Media in Education (JIME) has developed a novel approach to peer reviewing and publication. Here the Web has been utilised to allow a much more public and open process of review so that each article more or less becomes a palimpsest of comment and response. Such an approach is valuable and shows the beginnings of how utilising hypertext can alter how we regard academic writing. However, as with Postmodern Culture the contents of JIME, that is, the essays, tend to maintain the linear form of the academic essay.