For bloggers (and those contemplating certain methods of suicide), that is the question.

“Jump” is a term that describes a continuation of an article or other text on another page, first used for newspapers. I always liked the jump in newspapers because it generally uses the first word of the article’s second headline, which could make for some funny jumps (i.e., “see INTERCOURSE, page A5″).

Since nobody reads newspapers anymore, “jump” now applies to the link one must click to read the rest of a blog post. When I posit the question “to jump or not to jump?” I mean “should I put the entire body of my blog post on the page, or should you have to click another link to read it all?”

On the one hand, my beautiful content would get cut off. After years of being forced to write in an inverted pyramid format, I’ve developed a more stream-of-consciousness style writing that presents the most important information last. Thus, my posts would not benefit from a jump like some news posts would.

On the other hand, my posts are too wordy. I can’t even get my mother to get to the end of one, much less an uninterested reader. Having a jump-off point will help cut this down to a digestible size. Plus, the fact that nobody is reading my posts at this point in time means nobody is going to notice the change.

So to jump or not to jump? In my case, it’s going to involve a major shift in writing style to switch to the jump. But starting with my next post, I’ll start implementing the jump. There may be some pictures as well; but, alas, my sizable audience of dedicated readers, do not hold high hopes for this promise.