Dave: What's the big deal about this anyways?
Me: Well Dave, there's a few things about this topic that makes it a big deal. Since I am researching how music affects our moods, everyone can relate to this from some point in their life. People out there are wondering how and why music can affect your mental and physical mood, and I also am curious about it.
Dave: What sort of people will this relate to? Not everyone may feel connected to music, so why would this relate to everyone?
Me: Music is something strong. I cant even explain it in words. I can listen to songs that may be matching the mood I am in, and I feel like someone understands what I am feeling because this song is basically explaining my emotions out loud. Music isn't just something that some people listen to, there is a genre of music for almost every person out there. Music is just something that can connect to your brain somehow to make you feel how you feel, it could even change how you feel.
Dave: If you don't know exactly how music affects someone emotions, then how will you write about it?
Me: I'm not going to write about something that isn't new to me at all, I want to be learning more new things through my research that way I have breakthroughs in finding out about how music affects our emotions. I am very curious about this topic too, so I want to be researching other peoples findings on how it affects us, and discovering some new things along the way. I'm not writing about something I know inside and out, I want to be gaining knowledge through my research.
Dave: You aren't just going to talk about music the entire time, so what other topics will you be researching?
Me: The topic may not seem like it will be broad enough to write a huge paper on, but as I thought about it I realized all the different directions I can go in. I have already researched key words to help me branch out my topic, so I came up with some. Music will be the root of my research, but I can go into talking about the brain and which part of the brain stores and controls emotion and physically how music affects our moods.
Dave: Won't some people find that boring if they don't really care about that part of the paper?
Me: If someone is curious about this topic, they will want to know details like that. Already in my research I have found out a lot about the human brain I did not know before! This is an important part of the topic I am writing about, so I think the specific audience I am aiming towards will find this fairly interesting in relation to the topic.
Dave: What do you expect the readers to get out of your paper?
Me: I just want my audience to enjoy the topic I'm writing about and I want it to feel like I am writing directly to them. I know so far in my researching I am learning new things every minute I search something different. I want the readers to feel the same way and by the end of the paper, they can be like "wow, I did not know that" or "that is completely new information for me." So if I had to give one thing I want my readers to get out of my paper, it would be new information. I think all good papers and essays are the ones with new ideas and new topics that you don't hear about very often.
Dave: So based off of everything you have learned so far and maybe things you plan to anticipate on learning, what is your point in all of this?
Me: I Just want a topic I am interested in, and will also make me learn new things. This topic is different in my opinion and I think people will be very interested in the research I have done.
Wow, Justin it sound like you have a very interesting topic to write about. I was really interested in what you said about how music can affect out moods. From personal experience I know that when I am more exited like on my ride home from this class I like to play music in my car that has little more beat to it. What I thought was great idea was when you talk about how you could branch off and talk about what different parts of the brain control what we say.
ReplyDeleteJustin, I still remember over ten years ago hearing a speaker talk about how music affects our brains. He described in the detail how differently our brains process music from any other input. Your blog post has reignited some of my curiosity about the topic. I wonder, though, what argument you hope to make about music. I think most people would agree that music can affect our moods, but I want to know how and where and why the music experts disagree about the effect of music on our moods. Remember, your essay has to go beyond just simply collecting interesting research to actually making an arguable point. Looking forward to reading your final essay!
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