One of the biggest attractions to writing this thesis online was the opportunity to open a dialogue about the medium. At the core of this dialogue are the unpredicted arguments, ideas, or paths implicit in my thesis that you find when you read or re-read it. This is one reason why hypertext is, I believe, a more participatory format for criticism and non-fiction than print. But in order for me to participate in online criticism (in the tradition of Bernstein's "Chasing Our Tails," for instance) I needed to slightly shift the typical goals of an honors thesis. My goals are not to first stake a position and then, through my evidence, to narrow the territory I must defend. I realized that because of the alternatives I've faced you with, there are several possible conclusions to this thesis. That's good; that's one of my goals. However, every author owes his/her readers some form of closure.

Besides, if I've done my job there is enough openness and multilinearity in the rest of the thesis to allow the conclusion to be more, well, conclusive. However, my picture of hypertext's future is a rough sketch, consisting of some blurred boundaries, multiple media, and a bare minimum of recognizable features. The sketch requires reviewing (but hopefully not revision!) to be complete. It requires suggestivity in the mind of the reader. My definitions of hypertext and its inherent characteristics are meant to encourage creativity in the field and in my readers. They carve out a place for hypertext as a medium and genre independent of print or linear literature, time-based visual art, film, web design, or computer games, although there are imprints of all of these media in hypertext.

In a field with so much potential, especially one which is still trying to find a larger audience, it is important to recognize what restrictions we as critics and readers of hypertext place on the medium. Pushing the envelope in hypertext requires us to push back some of our own restrictions on it, some of our own expectations and visions, and letting its readers decide where it will go. By writing more criticism online, utilizing the audio-visual technology at our disposal, and abandoning aesthetics of other media when they no longer apply, authors and readers will find a new aesthetic in the "android mode," a ghost in the machine. This is the body of hypertext that can begin to have its own presence in the literary world.

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