Who are you going to the CUB with? With whom are you going to the CUB? 

You might have been told that proper English must use the latter, as the first sentence ends with a preposition. preposition stranding is when a sentence ends with a preposition or a word that usually precedes a noun, like “to,” “with” or “at.” preposition stranding is common in spoken and informal English but many argue that it is a no-go in professional writing.

Dr. Michael Eskenazi and his team of psychology research assistants are trying to answer the question: “Does it really matter?” 

A Stetson University psychology professor with a PhD in experimental psychology, Eskenazi is in his 12th year of teaching. He focuses on language processing and the reading process. 

Eskenazi is currently working on a study to settle the preposition stranding debate and decide if preposition stranding disrupts the reading process. He works with seven Stetson undergraduate students in the REAiD Lab (Reading, Eye-tracking and Individual Differences Lab) to study participant responses to sentences with and without preposition strands. 

“Participants’ eye movements are monitored using an eye tracking machine,” explained Eskenazi. “The eye tracker measures eye positions on the screen 1000 times a second and is accurate down to the individual pixel on the screen.” The eye tracker collects data about the participants’ reading habits, including the time they spent reading, which words they looked at the longest and if they re-read parts of a sentence.

“Going back basically indicates that there was some comprehension problem,” said Eskenazi. “If you get through the sentence straight through, pretty quickly, everything is fine. You understood it.” So, Eskenazi will use the eye tracker data to decide if preposition stranding disrupts readers. 

Leonardo Giorgioni ’26 is a psychology major and research assistant in the REAiD Lab. When he first joined Eskenazi, Giorgioni worked on the “initial research” phase of the study; he read a variety of language processing research to decide where their project would fit in. Their research team looked for a “gap” in language processing research – or a topic that current research does not cover. “It’s our chance to do a study about it, to fill in the Gap, to give more knowledge about the gap,” said Giorgioni.

Now, Giorgioni and his peers have moved into hands-on work, and are trained to use the eye tracker technology. Giorgioni and his peers must follow strict procedures in the REAiD Lab to get accurate screenings, going as far as avoiding being too nice to participants. “We want to be specific with the instructions that we’re saying. If we were overly friendly, it could affect how happy they are,” said Giorgioni. “And if they’re too happy, too excited, or in a very good mood or in a very bad mood, then that might be affecting how quickly they’re reading or how they understand the sentences.” 

Working with Eskenazi gives Giorgioni the chance to explore the research world and decide what he wants to pursue post-graduation. “I want to take [the] chance to explore different forms of research, different disciplines within psychology, different professors, everything,” said Giorgioni. 

Through their research assistant-professor partnership , Giorgioni explores the psychology field first-hand, getting a feel for what he is interested in and gaining career-specific skills while Eskenazi gets to foster the next generation of researchers here at Stetson University. Their team also helps us decide which side of the preposition debate to be on.