Whether the hypertext medium presents academic argument in the traditional sense, hypertexts have been used quite effectively to conduct academic inquires and analyses. Over the past two years, students in EN 205D: Writing Hypertext have composed hypertexts to explore a variety of academic topics

• 20th Century Spanish Song
• Historic Preservation in Richmond, VA
• A Beginners Guide to Cell Biology
• Women's Studies
• Art History (Robert Gober)
• Alan Ginsberg's Howl
• Alzheimer's Disease
• Gender Roles and Employment
• Juvenile Delinquency

Take a moment to visit a few of these hypertexts. Could you imagine yourself accepting (or assigning) a hypertext in one of your courses? Why or why not? How would you evaluate it? What advantages and disadvantages for academic discourse do you see in this new genre? What do student writers lose when they leave traditional academic discourse behind? What do they gain? Imagine the potential yet to be realized when we welcome Information Technology into our courses!