The University Writing Center is located on the first floor of the Student Success Center. It is staffed by trained peer, graduate, and faculty tutors who offer free assistance with all types of academic and non-academic writing.
UWC tutors can help you brainstorm for ideas, narrow your focus, organize your ideas, shape your work for different audiences in different disciplines, incorporate and document your sources effectively, and develop your revision strategies. To schedule a tutoring session or browse online writing resources, visit www.jmu.edu/uwc.
Need an answer now? Check out the Online Writing Tips & Resources page https://www.jmu.edu/uwc/link-library/index.shtml
Writing About Dance
If you're new to writing about dance, or need some inspiration, the below books about dance research and writing might be helpful.
Writing about Dance, 2010We have this book in print and eBook. Writing About Dance guides students through various processes of writing about dance, from the informal (journal writing and free writing) to the formal (critiques, essays, and research papers).
Reading Dance: A Gathering of Memoirs, Reportage, Criticism, Profiles, Interviews, and Some Uncategorizable Extras, 2008Former Knopf and New Yorker editor-in-chief Gottlieb offers a wonderfully idiosyncratic collection of dance writings in one massive yet cohesive tome organized into chapters on major choreographers, dancers, teachers and miscellaneous subjects.
Through the Eyes of a Dancer, 2013We have this book in print and eBook. A compilation of the writings of dance critic and editor Wendy Perron, from the 1960s to the present. In pieces for The SoHo Weekly News, Village Voice, The New York Times, and Dance Magazine, Perron limns the larger aesthetic and theoretical shifts in the dance world since the 1960s. She surveys a wide range of styles and genres, from downtown experimental performance to ballets at the Metropolitan Opera House. In opinion pieces, interviews, reviews, brief memoirs, blog posts, and contemplations on the choreographic process, she gives readers an up-close, personalized look at dancing as an art form.
Citing Sources
Writing a research paper or presentation for a class usually requires you to read various sources and synthesize what you learn from them into your project. Using ideas from other people's work in your work requires you to document or cite or reference the sources of the information you use. These citations or references will appear in the text of your paper or be mentioned in your presentation. You will also have to list the sources you rely on at the end of your paper or presentation slides.
There are many different ways to document or cite or reference the sources. These are called citation styles, and the professor who assigns a paper or presentation tells students which style they should use. Two common styles used when writing about the arts are Chicago (see the Chicago Manual of Style) and MLA (see the MLA Handbook).
JMU Libraries Citing Sources Guide
Visit the JMU Libraries Citing Sources Guide for complete information about various style manuals as well as more information about citation management resources we offer like ZoteroBib and Zotero.
