Blog 20

Today, I discussed my research project with Maritza.  I told her that my research focused on music's influence on word processing of college students.  I then told her my research question: How does listening to familiar music opposed to unfamiliar music help or hinder the writing process of college students.  After telling my partner about my research, I discussed a study done by Sarah Ransdell and Leonard Gilroy called, "The effects of background music on word processed writing."  In this specific research essay, Ransdell and Gilroy tested college students on word processing using unfamiliar background music (slow ballads taken from a Nelson Riddle Orchestra tape).  In their conclusion, Ransdall and Gilroy write, "One's writing fluency is likely to be disrupted by both vocal and instrumental music.  And quality will be especially poor if one also has relatively poor memory skill and limited musical training" (147).  Granted the research associates bad writing with unfamiliar background music, how would the study differ if the students were given the choice to pick their own songs?  I feel that my research is important because it can potentially show that familiar music can help students write better.