One of the more playful aspects of this medium of which I learned to make use as these columns developed and started to bloom into something truly hypertextual was the aspect of exploration. I found that I enjoyed the game of nesting the point (if there really is such a thing) of a particular essay, or at least the most interesting idea that was related to the subject being discussed, well inside a number of linked pages.

In our traditional reading style we expect to encounter expository writing in the accepted paragraph style of: state the theme in the first sentence, develop the theme in a couple of following sentences, summarize the theme in a final sentence. Some wonderful writing exists in this style, but it doesn't fit a hypertextual context. A different style was called for here. I sought to both make use of the possibilities of the medium, and also to play with the expectations of the reader. Hopefully, readers of web essays (both mine and any others they may encounter) learn to expect hidden treasures, perhaps surprises, nested off the main branch of an essay, and to enjoy the process of discovering them. Perhaps it's not exactly playfulness, but situating main ideas somewhere off the beaten track is a way of allowing the reader to enhance his or her own experience of what the Boidem encompasses.

Go to: Hypertext and the element of choice, or
Go to: ... keep the reader on his or her toes, or
Go to: ... no before or after in cyberspace, or
Go to: Web Essays - The evolution of a (personal?) medium