Writing About Dance
For those new to writing about dance (and for general inspiration for everyone) discipline-specific guides to dance research and writing about dance can be very useful. Here are a few suggestions:
Writing about Dance by Call Number: Fine Arts Library Book Stacks - GV 1595 .O45 2010Writing 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 by Call Number: Fine Arts Library Book Stacks - GV 1600 .R43 2008
Through the Eyes of a Dancer by Call Number: Fine Arts Library Book Stacks - GV 1600 .P47 2013Through the Eyes of a Dancer compiles the writings of noted dance critic and editor Wendy Perron. 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.
The Writing Center
The Robert E. Hemenway Writing Center at the the University of Kentucky offers free and friendly help to all UK students, faculty, and staff. Graduate student consultants and undergraduate consultants assist with the process of composing and communicating in writing, speaking, and multimedia projects across the curriculum, at every stage of the composing and communicating process.
The Writing Center is located in the W. T. Young Library Hub in room B108B.
UK Libraries' Research 101 Guide
- Research 101A description of services at the University of Kentucky Libraries and a brief introduction to college-level research.
Citing Your Sources
Writing a research paper means documenting, or "citing," the sources of the information you use. How do you cite your sources? Every time you quote from or mention another person's writing or research in your own paper, you also mention the source of that work in a little aside called an "annotation." At the end of your paper, you include a list called a bibliography of all the sources you used throughout.
There are many different ways to annotate or call out sources in your paper, and many different ways to format the bibliography. These are called citation styles, and the professor who assigns a paper (or the publisher of a paper if it is being written for publication) tells writers which style they should use for any particular paper. Two common styles used when writing about the arts are Chicago (see the Chicago Manual of Style) and MLA (see the MLA Handbook).
Style Manuals
MLA Handbook by Call Number: Young Library Reference/Fine Arts Reference: LB2369 .G53 2016MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write academic papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities, including theatre research. The MLA Handbook describes exactly how to use it.
The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed.Call Number: Fine Arts Library Reference section Z 253 .U69Art History's preferred style manual describes recommended nuances of grammar and writing style and shows the preferred formats for footnotes and bibliographies.
The Chicago Manual of Style by 
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Call Number: REF Z253 .U69 2017Publication Date: 17th ed.Shows the preferred citation method for use in your research paper for your sources. Full-Text of the standard style manual, 17th edition. Limited to 25 simultaneous users.
Citing Images
Here is a short, authoritative guide to image citation from Artstor (a non-profit organization that builds and distributes the Digital Library, an online resource of more than 1.9 million images):
I also like this guide from Colgate University:
Citing and Plagiarism
- The Office of Academic Ombud Services Guide to Academic Integrity: Cheating and PlagiarismSenate Rule 6.3.1 states that "All academic work, written or otherwise, submitted by students to their instructors or other academic supervisors, is expected to be the result of their own thought, research or self-expression." There are severe penalties for presenting others' work as your own, including for failing to properly cite sources you use in research papers.
- University of Kentucky's Plagiarism PolicyUK's Official Policy on what constitutes plagiarism.