This page, and the pages linked from it, present a proposal and justifications for its organization and other stylistic choices. My point of departure is the recognition that proposal writing is a social activity where implicit audiences are constructed even as probable actual audiences have to be acknowledged.
On this page is the text of the 250 words introduction to the proposal analyzed in its constituent parts. The first page in this set includes the same text as it might be distributed. The third page is accessed through the various links on this page that explain further the choice of words.
| Text of a one page proposal | The steps taken to write the proposal. |
|---|---|
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| The title should give your answer to some of the major questions: Who? Why? Where?
How?
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| There are many reasons why the new digital technologies (hardware and particularly software) should transform what it is that human beings can imagine and do, as individuals and as integrated groups, communities or societies. | First, tell the reader the general field addressed by the proposal. |
| There are many reasons to think that this transformation should be noticeable in the development of children as they encounter for the first time technologies like computers broadly defined technologies which, obviously, are "new" for them in quite a different way than they may have been for their parents. | Then, specify further the subfield. |
| Many hypotheses have been proposed about what these transformations may entail. Many are busy investigating them. | Indicate how the field has been studied (literature review). |
| There are much fewer accounts of the ways some children actually do encounter computers, particularly now that they are getting more ubiquitous not only in specialized classrooms, but also all over schools and homes. | State what you consider to be the most useful "next" research that should be carried to address the general issues of the field. |
| We need these accounts because it is certain that children and their immediate human entourage can evolve many more ways of dealing with the computers in their lives than can be hypothesized on the basis of formal features of the technologies. | Justify the methodology or disciplinary tradition. |
| What is proposed is a detailed longitudinal investigation of a few children. It would start with their introduction to computers, particularly the Internet, and continue until they have achieved routine mastery. The research would start with very young children in households with computers and systematically record the full context of their introduction and then regular use of the machines: who is involved? How is this involvement constructed? What is achieved? | Introduce the steps you will be taking to conduct the research. |