Joseph Janangelo's experience with student hypertext essays suggests that two principal problems plague the essay as hypertext, focus, and connection. The struggle with connection is particularly relevant in relation to Davis and Shadle's conception of multi-writing as an alternative mode of research writing.

For Janangelo, the problem of connection seemed to manifest itself in the superficiality of the hyperlink. Janangelo's students "seemed to think that their texts could thrive on a juxtaposition, rather than an integration, of readymade texts. . . . While I had no trouble physically invoking my students' links, I experienced great difficulty discerning what those links meant" (25).

In effect, Janangelo's students had signaled connection by inserting links from one element of the hypertext to others. But the significance of those connections remained unarticulated, or implicit at best. While Janangelo admits that his students' hypertexts were "much like poor print-based term papers" (25), these projects point to an important caution for the multi-writer and hypertext research writer (and reader) alike.

If multi-writing "enacts a process of intertextual linking that erases the boundaries between texts, and between author and audience" (432), as Davis and Shadle claim, one might wonder whether Janangelo's students could insist that the juxtaposition of texts was an intentional effort to engage the reader in the process of constructing the meaning of the connections.

Still, effectively constructed hypertext essays might be capable of more than a mere juxtaposition of "readymade texts." The persuasive hypertexts about which Janangelo writes may simply be bad hypertext research essays. Effective hypertext research essays will need to steer a course between the reader-centric and open elements of hypertext on one hand, and the narrowly focused linearity of argument.

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