I was talking with a novelist recently about various kinds of writing-nothing special, just happy-hour talk-and I found my earnest self assuring him that, oh yes, academic writing nowadays will tolerate a number of different styles and voices. (I should know, right? I'm in academic publishing.) He choked; he slapped my arm; he laughed out loud. I don't remember if he spit his drink back in the glass. Silly me, I was serious. And, among other things, I was thinking about this essay/dialogue, in which we're turning discourse conventions of the net - often a rather casual medium - to some fairly stuffed-shirt academic purposes.