Musicology Writing Tips

The Chicago manual (use the 14th edition) is the standard for writing in the humanities and you will need to consult it for more complicated cases concerning the format of your papers. Turabian is a shorter, less complete version of Chicago. There are some specifically musical conventions that are best addressed by Jonathan Bellman, A Short Guide to Writing about Music (New York: Longman, 2000). Bellman is also excellent as a guide into the writing process and so is Strunk (see below); a classic text that introduced many generations of students to the art of effective writing.

Here are some important points:

• Use two spaces between sentences and after colons.
• For quotation marks with punctuation see Turabian 5.17, or for more complex cases consult Chicago, chapter 5.
• Breaking up the narrative into paragraphs is essential for writing clarity, as is the internal organization of each paragraph. Without clear, sequential presentation, the persuasive power of your argument weakens. Read carefully the appropriate sections from Strunk. (online version)
• Use block quotations for texts of three lines and longer. Do not change the font size. Block quotations are indented, single-spaced, and require no quotation marks. See Chicago 10.10-25.
• Please use footnotes rather than endnotes.
• Do not use p. or pp. for page numbers. Simply provide the page numbers.
• The term s.v. (sub verbo) endorsed by Turabian/Chicago for dictionary entries should not be used for the Grove family of dictionaries (The New Grove, Grove 2, Opera Grove, and Instruments Grove), or for the MGG (Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart). These entries are extensive enough for some of them to have been published as individual books. For that reason they must be treated and credited in notes and bibliography as articles in edited collections. Use s.v. for unsigned dictionary articles. Consult Bellman, 163.

  Example:
     Martin Staehelin, "Isaac, Heinrich," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan, 1980), vol. 9, 329-37.

• For documentation of online sources consult http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/about/citation/. Remember that online sources need to be dated. Also, see Bellman, 167.

  Example:
     Halina Goldberg, "Music in Warsaw's Salons," Polish Music Journal 2/1 (Summer-Winter 1999) (1999), accessed 9 April 2001.

• Illustrations, musical examples and tables must be labeled. Check Chicago 11.25-43. Musical excerpts must be marked Example, number, composer's name, title of the composition, movement of the composition, followed by measure numbers (m. 25, or mm. 25-77). Check Bellman, 156-58. The scores from which your excerpts were extracted must be listed in your bibliography (see Chicago 15.412).
• For standard presentation of musical titles, see Chicago 7.149-153.
• For capitalization of historical, cultural terms, styles, etc. see Chicago 7.63-69.

[UA Musicology]