This paper, and the succeeding one, will concentrate on certain fields in which we have experience, which seem worthy of further exploration and development. The main topics dealt with will be: the significance of gas purity and the molecular gas problem; utilization of gross unresolved appearance of a plasma and the necessity for distinguishing between steady and oscillating plasmas, illustrated by reference to terminal conditions in moving striations; noise and turbulence; a possible quantal limitation imposed on time resolution by the Einstein coefficients for allowed and forbidden transitions; formulation of the excitation integral; further examples of spectroscopic techniques, including use of interference filters, study of potential in sheaths, and a check on the voltage amplitude of so-called plasma electron oscillations.