Reading and comprehension on the Web

NAVIGATION HAZARD HYPERTEXT CONTENT BRAVELY CLICK TO ENTER

This introduction deals with the way this website is organized, and some indispensable fundamental cognitive operations of research required of the site visitor which many may consider difficult or even objectionable.

WARNING:
Whereas it is difficult to speak of all things to all people, whatever is not explained may therefore be confusing, or else when explained beforehand may therefore be found distracting digression if not actually condescending. To whit, this very introduction scarcely offers any central exposition of any actual intended and varied subject matter of this website. Instead, this page before you is inextricably bogged down only in tiresome preliminaries of style, specifically how and why despite all stated purpose and focus offered here on FoolQuest.com, these pages simply do not all "flow" inexorably from one into the next.

And just why is this so? Because such linearity requires that "one size fits all", a somewhat unlikely assumption given so many degrees of variation in prior knowledge, interest and purposeful motivation, corresponding, if at all, to any part of a wide range of different interlocking content as on this site. -That's right, this site endeavors at true hypertextuality, in that together with various selected resources Offsite, different topics covered on separate pages are grouped by categories and also cross-referentially hyperlinked at their various points of intersection in an effort to help bring increase of coherent meaning onto the Web. (You can even submit your own links!)

Indeed, once these introductory pages conclude, webnavigation even at it's clearest does not go so far as to deliberately limit or structure somehow or other validated choice in order to lead the site visitor about by the nose (a practice or style properly termed intetextuality or sometimes even demonized as "Totalitarian Interactivity"), instead leaving free and open a plurality of varying paths and branching references, an experiential course or train of thought charted in interplay with the site visitor's own concerns, perspectives and information needs. And if no meeting of minds emerges therefrom, then there probably never was any to ferret out.

For, in the immortal words of Groucho Marx, "You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think!" Because what is required in order to stimulate the requisite functional intelligence is any enthusiasm rising above fear, loathing, ennui and Narcissism. In other words, these texts are impenetrable to apathy!

Therefore, on this site, as in life itself, without either some pursuit of one's own or else any sense of exploration, meaning the impulse of attraction to genuine novelty, if attentional focus neither targets nor resolves, pattern recognition may fail and disorientation ensue.

How good is your English?
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See how the sentence richness and complexity forces the reader to slow down, momentarily? Make no mistake, no doubt, the text immediately to the right is unapologetically verbose, but without becoming a run-on (or "fused") sentence. Indeed, the passage in question is not only grammatically correct, but reasonably well enough structured (or: "nested") not to actually pose any reading difficulty for native English speakers at the minimum levels of proficiency and patience required for browsing this website let alone being of much help in the various common projects.

Difficulty in the readability of any line of text may be due either to deep literate complexity or just momentary ineptitude in the writing of prose. And, truth to tell, everyone is capable of either! Yet it remains the same diligence that ferrets out ambiguity of whatever sort, in detecting errors and glitches on the one hand, as works out meaning and nuance on the other, even discovering new ramifications, and, either way, transcends easy reading into the partnership of deeper Critical Thinking.

Therefore, in any case, as it may often happen venturing into any domain of new ideas, when one does not already "get the gist of it", and although the concise, as well it should, generally prefaces the progressively more elaborated and detailed, nevertheless, the eye, if not fortuitously passing across the desired salient points, then resting upon that which does not readily scan and finding whatever lines of text which cannot simply and readily be skimmed, indeed, discovering that which is both involved and unfamiliar (no matter how direct the exposition), such portions must then actually be at all fully absorbed in sequence as written and then linguistically processed for syntax.

Because reading and comprehension will be crucial to any sort of critical review to inform navigational choices or even to articulate any questions which may arise. Indeed, sans even the minimal self directed wherewithal required in order to alternate between skimming and reading closely as ever needed simply in order to achieve and sustain comprehension, the very prospect of choosing and selectively following up from whatever range of provided linked content in any specific further focus of desired investigation, can only tend to seem no less daunting, impractical, obscure, obtuse and just nebulously vague.

Worse still, the work remains incomplete. Indeed, if one ever fails to find every such answer as one seeks, that may well be because they might not all be there. Because many such questions may actually fall amid the much needed advice or input, such collaboration as is actively and explicitly being sought by yours truly, the Webmaster. -This very website, after all, constituting no more or less than the "front end", as it where, for such undertakings as are herein sought to facilitate. And so, gentle reader, will you accept the invitation and are you up to the challenge?