Research Guides: MUSI 009B: Music as Oral Tradition (SC): Writing and Citing

Tri-College Guides

Style Guide: A style guide for formal writing in music courses at Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges.
Music Example Guide: Contains instructions on including score, audio, and video examples in your essays.

Supplementary Resource

From Notes to Narrative: Writing ethnographies that everyone can read
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2016. Kristen Ghodsee. "Ethnography centers on the culture of everyday life. So it is ironic that most scholars who do research on the intimate experiences of ordinary people write their books in a style that those people cannot understand. In recent years, the ethnographic method has spread from its original home in cultural anthropology to fields such as sociology, marketing, media studies, law, criminology, education, cultural studies, history, geography, and political science. Yet, while more and more students and practitioners are learning how to write ethnographies, there is little or no training on how to write ethnographies well. From Notes to Narrative picks up where methodological training leaves off. Kristen Ghodsee, an award-winning ethnographer, addresses common issues that arise in ethnographic writing. Ghodsee works through sentence-level details, such as word choice and structure. She also tackles bigger-picture elements, such as how to incorporate theory and ethnographic details, how to effectively deploy dialogue, and how to avoid distracting elements such as long block quotations and in-text citations. She includes excerpts and examples from model ethnographies. The book concludes with a bibliography of other useful writing guides and nearly one hundred examples of eminently readable ethnographic books.

Writing about Music by D. Kern Holoman This link opens in a new window This link opens in a new window This link opens in a new window

How do you spell "Mendelssohn"? Where do you place the hyphen in "Beethoven" if it breaks between two lines? Is it "premiere" or "première"? The answers and much more can be found in this completely revised and updated resource for authors, students, editors, concert producers--anyone who deals with classical music in print. This essential volume covers some of the thorniest issues of musical discourse: how to go about describing musical works and procedures in prose, the rules for citations in notes and bibliography, and proper preparation of such materials as musical examples, tables, and illustrations. One section discusses program notes, another explains the requirements for submitting manuscripts and electronic files. A new section outlines best practices for student writers. An appendix lists common problem words.

Chicago

The Chicago Manual of Style
Now in its 17th edition from the University of Chicago Press Editorial Staff, The Chicago Manual of Style is commonly used in the performing arts.

Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) Guide to Chicago Style

Citation Managers

Zotero: The Tri-College Libraries recommend Zotero, a free tool that can format your bibliography, keep your citations organized, and even save your articles in the cloud so you can access them later from the library, home, or a cafe. See the Tri-College Guide to Zotero for more details.

EndNote Basic: The Tri-Colleges provide free access to EndNote Basic. See the Tri-College Guide to EndNote Basic for more details.

Any librarian will be happy to give you a tour or a few pointers of the software.

Citation Builders

ZoteroBib
Build a bibliography instantly from any computer or device, without creating an account or installing any software.
BibMe
NCSU Citation Builder
APA and MLA only
NoodleTools
Son of Citation Machine