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Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guittari propose the idea of the rhizome in the "Introduction" from A Thousand Plateaus. The rhizome is related to the botanical idea of a plant that grows in multiple directions from a bulb as oppose to taking root from a seed. The authors posit that this structure can be related to the structure of thought (or lack thereof) in literature, though they seem to also suggest that the idea of a rhizome is a generalized structure that can be applied to a large number of other concepts (NMR 408-9). The authors break books down into three types of structures: the "root-book," the "radicle-system, or fascicular root," and the "rhizome" (408-9). The "root-book" refers to a book whose structure reflects that of a rooted tree, having a very well-defined structure (408). The "radicle-system" is defined to be more disjointed than the "root-book"; however, this model can still be considered to be a whole work (408). The rhizome is not supposed to reflect the world, and, "connects any point to any other point..." in the work (409). The authors are previously-published, stating at the beginning of the work that they published a previous work, Anti-Oedipus. As with the exact argument and the general writing style, the intended audience of the book is not made particularly clear. The introduction given in the New Media Reader suggests that the authors are very influential cultural writers.

The authors seemed to leave the actual definition of the "rhizome" very much open to interpretation, while setting some standards for what it is not. As the Introduction in the New Media Reader suggests, there definitions would likely be much clearer after reading the entirety of A Thousand Plateaus, or Anit-Oedipus (405). I have to disagree with the idea that such an unstructured style could exist and serve to transmit any useful or coherent information, though I also acknowledge that the authors never state a purpose for rhizomatic writing. The authors suggest that the movement through "Binary logic" in the "root-book" is limiting; however, I fail to see why another "root-book" could not expand on the first root-book in a different dimension to connect to a more complex analysis, as in the rhizome. The ability to use rhizomatic writing to describe hypertext escapes me, and I cannot think of a use or purpose; to me this article seems like the authors are being contrary purely for the purpose of being contrary. With that in mind, I propose the following discussion questions:

1. What other areas of knowledge could rhizomatic writing be used as a "better" method than the other writing methods defined in this work ("root-book" and "radicle-system")?
2. Is this work an example of rhizomatic writing?
3. Are the "root-book" and "radicle-system" methods of writing limited?