Writing About Music: An Introductory Guide

Helping users write clear, convincing, persuasive prose on musical topics, this practical guide focuses on general writing issues as well as special challenges of writing about music—with clear, step-by-step explanations of the process of writing a paper. Updated to reflect the latest research methodology, resources, and technology, it continues to offer strong coverage on research, organization, drafting and editing—and includes a thorough section on basic writing skills. Contains complete chapters on writing about music, analysis and research, getting started, writing a research paper (from choosing a topic through outlining, writing the draft, editing and revising), questions of format, other kinds of writing projects (i.e., seminar presentations, concert reports, program notes), writing styles, and common writing problem. Covers the latest musicological research and new resources for researching both print and electronic publications. Discusses writing papers on a PC, and provides a sample paper in the appendix that illustrates matters of format and discusses the events in the musical work. For writers.

This guidebook provides practical and specific assistance to undergraduate students about writing research papers and other types of projects in the field of music. It also offers practical help in writing effective prose on any topic and ways to improve one's writing style.

The Third Edition has been extensively revised and rewritten. The organization of the material has been changed in order to present issues in a more logical order. There are expanded sections on new approaches to musicological research, electronic resources for research, and how to use word processing programs to draft and edit a paper. The section on format issues has been revised and expanded to make the detailed information it offers clearer and more useful. Finally, a new sample student paper has been included in the Appendix, along with discussion questions designed to help students analyze the paper, read more critically, and understand better the process of researching a topic, designing a paper, and arguing a thesis persuasively.