This page is part of a set designed to 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.
This page includes further explanations for the choice of words and their sequencing. The first page in this set includes the same text as it might be distributed. The second page includes the same text analyzed in its constituent parts.
While the word "exploratory" is not strictly necessary, it indicates my interpretation of "ethnography" for this proposal and also justifies why ethnography might be necessary given my understanding (i.e. "construction") of an audience that might be suspicious of ethnographic methods in the study of young children or computers
"why the new digital technologies (hardware and particularly software)
should transform"
The first sentence should indicate very clearly the overall field the proposal will address in the broadest sense. It should attempt to bring in as many of the potential audience as possible, at the same time as it will necessarily make other readers drop out if they construct themselves as "not interested in ...".
"the development of children "
This narrows the first sentence (and thereby constructs out some more of the potential audience, while focusing the attention of a subset of the attention that will recognize that their field is actually being addressed).
"Many hypotheses have been proposed "
This is the place for a brief indication of the kind of literature that is in the background of the proposal (and will be discussed in the "review of the literature" section) as well as an indication of the way this literature will be interpreted, thereby suggesting the kind of questions that will eventually be asked (and even perhaps the methodology for those who know how to read these sentences).
"There are much fewer accounts"
This specifies further the limitations or lacks in the literature reviewed. This may be the first moment when some readers will begin evaluating the proposal. Having accepted the proposal as relevant to their interests, they may now understand that the writer is in fact not moving in the direction they would be moving towards.
"We need these accounts because"
This is the beginning of the justification for the direction taken. It should address the main objections usually addressed against those who take it, and it should indicate why taking it is not a waste of time (or money if the proposal is written for possible funding).
This is the beginning of the statements describing what the researcher will be doing (where it will be done, using what kind of techniques).