In the late 1990s, Joseph Janangelo received two unexpected hypertexts from students in fulfillment of course paper requirements: "Instead of thesis-driven prose, I received dozens of linked screens. . . . The author offered no prefatory comment or explanatory prose. Both of these texts struck me as elaborate, yet unsatisfying" (25).

These hypertexts revealed a fundamental tension between hypertext and research writing. While hypertext is expansive and open-ended, the research essay is conceived as a sustained treatment of a relatively narrow project or set of issues.

In Janangelo's experience with student hypertext essays, students can easily "confuse the ability to link materials with intellectual enrichment, subscribing to the idea that saying all you know (or linking as much as you can find) about a topic is better than selecting your evidence based on an analysis of your reader's questions, knowledge, and needs" (29-30).

The information-rich qualities of hypertext may make Janangelo's criticisms seem out of place—of course his students hypertexts put together everything the students encountered in their research. Hypertext is very good at this task, as Nelson's vision of the "docuverse" revealed in the 1960s.

Still, Janangelo's point is well taken since his students were assigned print papers and chose to hand in hypertexts. If his students were to submit hypertexts to fulfill course requirements, it was incumbent on them to meet the criteria established for print-based papers.

Janangelo's students may not have been successful at producing recognizable research essays as hypertext. But if the research essay as hypertext has a place, authors will eventually have to balance the openness of hypertext with the focus of the research essay.

Copyright © Enculturation 2002

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