Introduction to Patchwork Girl

	Introduction to Patchwork Girl
	1) Making your way through this hypertext requires your concentration on the instructions in the booklet that accompanies the disc. If you keep the booklet with you when you are working, you should be able to navigate the site well. The plethora of buttons on the windows initially looks confusing (well, it was to me!). Use the guide to identify each. The most useful to me in navigating are the history, storyspace map and outline buttons. 2) This is a new experience: expect it to be confusing. Don't be discouraged if you find yourself lost or overwhelmed by windows or buttons. Just open up the storyspace map again to re-orient yourself. Remember, too, that reading hypertext is not a linear experience: you, as reader, are expected to create, in a sense, the story from your reading. 3) The Story If you read the article before you start exploring you should be clear on the concept of the book, and the story of which it is reworking, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. A number of 'I's inhabit this book at different times: the I of the writer of the hypertext, the I of the maker of the female Frankenstein, the I of the monster itself writing and speaking. In addition, each of the body parts from which the monster is made narrates its own story. You need to work out all the time you are reading exactly who is speaking. 4) Navigation There are two primary ways to navigate the text: by picture maps and by text spaces. You can move between the two at will, but for those who like to know where they are going and what will happen when they are en route her are some basic directions. Bring the storyspace map version of the text to the front. You will see a number of titled boxes. hercut through hercut4 and phrenology are picture maps: you click on different parts of the picture to bring up separate sections of the story. Use the history button (which produces a list of all the text spaces you have visited) to go back to the picture to explore additional links. Or follow the links from the text spaces you open. Use the history button, too, if you want to revisit a text box. journal, body of text, story, crazy quilt, and graveyard are primarily sequences of text boxes. Impatient, linear readers like me should open the main text space and click on the outline button. Check both the show text box and the automatically show text window boxes at the top of the window and a miniscule text sequence appears on the screen. The print is just legible, but if you double-click on each section, the full-sized text box will open in front of the outline, easing eye strain a lot. 5) Why am I asking you to read this book? First, the content speaks intimately to each of us. The search for stable identity, the urge to understand ourselves as a preliminary to acting in the world, and the unequal struggle between rationality and instinct occupy our reflective moments. Second, the symbiotic relationship between content and form (between what is written and how it is written) grows more and more important as we read. As one student wrote in Spring, 1998, "It was as if the story were alive..." Explore…….Learn…….Ask Me Questions as Soon as You are Lost!
	the syllabus the texts the journals the assignments the presentations hypertext bookshelf hypertext writing Lesley Smith, August 1999

	Introduction to Patchwork Girl
	1) Making your way through this hypertext requires your concentration on the instructions in the booklet that accompanies the disc. If you keep the booklet with you when you are working, you should be able to navigate the site well. The plethora of buttons on the windows initially looks confusing (well, it was to me!). Use the guide to identify each. The most useful to me in navigating are the history, storyspace map and outline buttons. 2) This is a new experience: expect it to be confusing. Don't be discouraged if you find yourself lost or overwhelmed by windows or buttons. Just open up the storyspace map again to re-orient yourself. Remember, too, that reading hypertext is not a linear experience: you, as reader, are expected to create, in a sense, the story from your reading. 3) The Story If you read the article before you start exploring you should be clear on the concept of the book, and the story of which it is reworking, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. A number of 'I's inhabit this book at different times: the I of the writer of the hypertext, the I of the maker of the female Frankenstein, the I of the monster itself writing and speaking. In addition, each of the body parts from which the monster is made narrates its own story. You need to work out all the time you are reading exactly who is speaking. 4) Navigation There are two primary ways to navigate the text: by picture maps and by text spaces. You can move between the two at will, but for those who like to know where they are going and what will happen when they are en route her are some basic directions. Bring the storyspace map version of the text to the front. You will see a number of titled boxes. hercut through hercut4 and phrenology are picture maps: you click on different parts of the picture to bring up separate sections of the story. Use the history button (which produces a list of all the text spaces you have visited) to go back to the picture to explore additional links. Or follow the links from the text spaces you open. Use the history button, too, if you want to revisit a text box. journal, body of text, story, crazy quilt, and graveyard are primarily sequences of text boxes. Impatient, linear readers like me should open the main text space and click on the outline button. Check both the show text box and the automatically show text window boxes at the top of the window and a miniscule text sequence appears on the screen. The print is just legible, but if you double-click on each section, the full-sized text box will open in front of the outline, easing eye strain a lot. 5) Why am I asking you to read this book? First, the content speaks intimately to each of us. The search for stable identity, the urge to understand ourselves as a preliminary to acting in the world, and the unequal struggle between rationality and instinct occupy our reflective moments. Second, the symbiotic relationship between content and form (between what is written and how it is written) grows more and more important as we read. As one student wrote in Spring, 1998, "It was as if the story were alive..." Explore…….Learn…….Ask Me Questions as Soon as You are Lost!