<p>Is there some elegant way to add an empty option to a DropDownList bound with a LinqDataSource?</p>

Here's how to add a value at the top of the list. It can be an empty string, or some text.
```
```
<asp:DropDownList ID="categories" runat="server" AppendDataBoundItems="True" AutoPostBack="True" DataSourceID="categoriesDataSource" DataTextField="CategoryName" DataValueField="CategoryID" EnableViewState="False">
    <asp:ListItem Value="-1">
       -- Choose a Category --
    </asp:ListItem>           
</asp:DropDownList>
```
```
Be sure to set the DropDownList's AppendDataBoundItems=True.