Submissions

Author Guidelines

The IADMS Bulletin for Dancers and Teachers welcomes submissions that translate research into practical, respectful and engaging information for dance teachers, dancers and educators across diverse settings worldwide.

Bulletin Tone and Style

• Accessible, conversational and direct - avoid academic jargon and overly formal phrasing.
• Respectful and collaborative - write with teachers and dancers, not at them.
• Curious and generous - share insights as tools for exploration, not prescriptions.
• Avoid the passive voice, dense citations and hierarchical framing of expertise or knowledge.
• Please respect others' expertise - acknowledge that teachers and dancers are already experts in their own contexts; frame research as a resource, not a directive; and invite reflection, adaptation, experimentation and feedback.

Paper Structure and Content Focus

All Bulletin article contributions must derive from original peer-reviewed journal articles. We are unable to accept your contribution if it has not been developed from your own, peer-reviewed article(s).

All articles must be written in American English.

All articles should be up to 1500 words long (excluding references). We anticipate readers spending no longer than 8-10 minutes or so reading each paper in an issue. Provide enough detail to whet the appetite, but keep it relatively short and focussed so that readers can consume bite-sized content.

Please write and submit your article using MS Word.

All articles must be written following this structure:

1. Title of paper

2. Your name and qualifications and those of any co-authors

3. Include a 50-word biography for each author

4. Context and rationale: Briefly introduce the topic and why it matters to teaching, learning and dancing. Use plain language, 1-2 key references max that allow readers to go and find out more if they wish.

5. Research summary: Share the core findings of your study. Focus on summarising research results rather than detailing methods; use bullet points or diagrams.

6. Application of findings to practice for dancers, teachers and educators: Translate findings onto teaching, learning and dancing strategies. Include lesson ideas, rehearsal tips, cues or adaptations - keep your translations realistic and achievable. Combine longer-term suggestions with some quick wins.

7. Tools and resources: Offer visual or practical resources. We want to support authors to be creative and your editor can help you with your ideas. Be aware that readers may move straight to your tools and resources section.

8. Reflections and invitations: Pose any open questions, suggest ways to trial ideas, what things might teachers and dancers reflect on from reading this work?

9. Conclusion: Conclude your work so that there is a key take-home message for the reader. Include a very brief summary of your findings and the implications of these for the practice specifically of dancers and teachers.

10. Original article citation(s): Get readers to explore your work further by going to your original peer-reviewed article. Please include the full citation of your original peer-reviewed article, including doi/permanent link where possible. Ensure the permanent link is active. Please note referencing guidelines in formatting this citation.

11. Further reading and resources: Signpost interested readers to further information on this topic. Please identify one resource (cited using AMA style) and provide a 150-word annotation so that readers can learn more about the value of this particular resource. Review examples in the current Bulletin issue. 

12. References: Provide a reference list (not bibliography) for all resources cited in your writing. The Bulletin follows the AMA Manual of Style. Every in-text citation must have a corresponding citation in the reference list and vice versa. Corresponding citations must have identical spelling and year.

13. Acknowledgments: Ensure all contributors to your work are acknowledged appropriately. This might include those who produced or feature in any images or visual material you share for example.

Please include a summary/abstract of your paper with your submission. It should be 150-200 words long.

Practical Tools and Visuals

We encourage authors to include, for example:

• Lesson plans or rehearsal strategies
• Diagrams or annotated images
• Short videos or movement demonstrations
• Printable templates or cue cards
• Infographics: you can view IADMS infographics here: https://iadms.org/education-resources/infographics/ 
• Pedagogical frameworks or decision trees

These should be:

• Easy to adapt across levels and settings
• Visually clear and uncluttered
• Framed as starting points, not fixed solutions

Please ensure images, figures, tables and videos are clearly labelled in the text, and that file names are consistent with in-text figure/image/video titles so that it is clear where each is meant to be placed within the text.

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