In "Building a Mystery: Alternative Research Writing and the Academic Act of Seeking," Davis and Shadle describe an experimental form of multi-media research writing they call "multi-writing" (434). In multi-writing, "students explore topics of interest . . . and use a variety of sources to inform projects that combine multiple generes and, in some cases, different media, disciplines, and cultures. These projects often resist, suspend, and/or decenter the master consciousness or central perspective inscribed in the essay as a unifying voice" (Davis and Shadle 431).

The "multi-genre/media/disciplinary/cultural research project" (431) fits within the broad category of the research essay in its rejection of report writing. Students are asked to bring together material from a range of potentially relevant sources in order to articulate, if not a position, at least a project. For Davis and Shadle, multi-writing "suggests a wandering consciousness" (431) through a topic or research interest.

As a form of the research essay, multi-writing may be particularly amenable to hypertext research writing. Authors "wander" through a broad, varied terrain. Their multi-projects "work by making, but not forcing, connections" (432). These features of multi-writing suggest that multi-projects may have something in common with student hypertexts encountered by Joseph Janangelo in the late 1990s.

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