work cited hamlet mla

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ENG 102 - Shakespeare Research

• 5. Cite Your Sources

5. Cite Your Sources in MLA Format

Here are a few examples to help you cite your sources in MLA format:

How to Cite a Play From Your Textbook

Format:   Author(s). Title of Play . The Norton Introduction to Literature , edited by Kelly J. Mays, shorter 14th ed., W. W. Norton, 2022, pp. 123-45.

How to Cite a Journal Article

Format:   Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Journal , vol. #, no. #, Date of Publication, page number(s). Database Name (if electronic),  URL.

How to Cite Part of a Book, Ebook, or Encyclopedia

Format:   Author(s). "Title of Part." Title of Book , edited by Editor, edition, vol. #, Publisher, Year, page number(s). Database Name (if electronic).  URL.

Additional MLA Examples

Citing a Play: Shakespeare, In-Text Citation

Format: (Act. Scene. Line Number(s))

Example: In Hamlet ,   Ophelia sings about different flowers and plants in a display of her descent into madness:

OPHELIA. There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies,

that's for thoughts.

LAERTES. A document in madness! Thoughts and remembrance fitted.

OPHELIA. There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for you, and here's some for me. We  may call it herb of grace o'  Sundays. O, you must wear your rue with a difference! There's a daisy.   I would give you some violets, but they wither'd all  when my father died. They say he made a good end. [Sings] For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy. (4.5.171-179)

*Note: If the lines in the play are not numbered, include the page number instead.

*Note : If you have used the author's name or the play's title in the signal phrase before introducing the quote, you do not need to include it in your in-text citation.

*Note:  When quoting dialogue or lines from a play, indent the line a half inch (one tab) from the left margin. Include the character names in all capital letters, followed by a period. If the dialogue is more than one line on the page long, indent the remaining lines of dialogue by a half inch.

Citing a Play: Shakespeare, Works Cited

If your play was published as a stand-alone book, it is the same as a MLA Book Citation

Format: Author Last Name, Author First Name.  Title of Play in Italics.  Edition, Publisher, Year . Database

Name in Italics (if electronic), URL.

Example:  Shakespeare, William.  Hamlet. Simon & Schuster, 1992.

*Note: if using a print book, skip the database name.

If your play was published in an anthology or a collection:

Format:  Author Last Name, Author First Name.  Title of Play in Italics . Collection or Anthology Title,  edited by

Editor Name, edition, vol. #, Publisher, Year, Page Numbers.

Example:  Shakespeare, William.  Hamlet. The Norton Anthology of World Literature , edited by Martin

Puchner, 3rd ed., vol. C, W.W. Norton and Company, 2012, pp. 652-753.

In-Text Citations

This in-text citation information will get you started, but see our full In-text Citation Guide for more information and additional examples .

• Basic Format

No Page Numbers

• 3 or More Authors

Basic Format: 1 Author and Page Numbers

Place the author’s last name and page number in parenthesis. If the in-text citation is at the end of a sentence, place the period outside the parenthesis.

Example 1:  (Hennessy 81).

Example 2:  (Hennessy 81-82).

If a source has no page numbers, omit the page number. Keep in mind, most electronic sources do not include pages.

Example 1: ("Everyday Victims")

Example 2: (Jones)

If the source has no author, your in-text citation will use the title of the source that starts your works cited entry. The title may appear in the sentence itself or, abbreviated, before the page number in parenthesis.

Example 1:  (“Noon” 508).

Example 2 :  ( Faulkner’s Novels  25).

Example 3 :  (“Climate Model Simulations").

If the entry on the Works Cited page begins with the names of two authors, include both last names in the in-text citation, connected by and.

Example:  (Dorris and Erdrich 23).

If the source has three or more authors, include the first author’s last name followed by et al.

Example:  (Burdick et al. 42).

MLA Works Cited Guide

Shortened MLA Practice Template

MLA Formatting Rules

In-text Citations

Sample Paper in MLA Format

MLA Practice Template (long version)

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ENGL 263 - Shakespeare

• Sources for Your Papers

Formatting a Paper for MLA Style in Word or Google Docs

Citing shakespeare's plays in mla.

• Need More Help?

Want to go more in-depth? Check out these guides

• Guide to MLA In-text Citations (Scribbr) A guide to using in-text citations in MLA style. This will be helpful for other sources you will cite beyond Shakespeare's work.
• Guide to MLA Works Cited Pages (Scribbr) A comprehensive guide to preparing the works cited page for an MLA paper (also known as a reference list or bibliography).
• MLA Style (Purdue Online Writing Lab) An extensive guide to MLA style covering both formatting and citations.
• ZoteroBib (aka zbib) A fast, free bibliography generator, powered by the same parser used for Zotero. This tool is more reliable than other bibliography generators. Remember to change the bibliography style from 'American Psychological Association 7th edition' (the default) to 'Modern Language Association 9th edition'. You are responsible however for double-checking the accuracy of citation outputs. You can always ask a librarian for assistance with citations!

The works of Shakespeare, like many plays, have consistently numbered acts, scenes, and lines. These numbers should be used in your  MLA  in-text citations, separated by periods, instead of page numbers.

The Works Cited entry follows the format for a book, but varies depending on whether you cite from a standalone edition or a collection. The example below is for a standalone edition of  Hamlet .

If you cite multiple Shakespeare plays in your paper, replace the author’s name with an abbreviation of the play title in your in-text citation.

Citing a play from a collection

If you use a collection of all or several of Shakespeare’s works, include a Works Cited entry for each work you cite from it, providing the title of the individual work, followed by information about the collection.

Note that play titles remain italicized here, since these are works that would usually stand alone.

If you cite several works by Shakespeare, order them alphabetically by title, and replace “Shakespeare, William” with a series of three em dashes after the first one.

Citing multiple Shakespeare plays

If you cite more than one Shakespeare play in your paper, MLA recommends starting each in-text citation with an abbreviated version of the play title, in italics. A list of the standard abbreviations can be found  here ; don’t make up your own abbreviations.

Introduce each abbreviation the first time you mention the play’s title, then use it in all subsequent citations of that play.

Don’t use these abbreviations outside of parentheses. If you frequently mention a multi-word title in your text, you can instead shorten it to a recognizable keyword (e.g.  Midsummer  for  A Midsummer Night’s Dream ) after the first mention.

Quoting Shakespeare in MLA

Shakespeare quotations generally take the form of verse or dialogue.

Quoting verse

To quote up to three lines of verse from a play or poem, just treat it like a normal quotation. Use a forward slash (/) with spaces around it to indicate a new line.

If there’s a stanza break within the quotation, indicate it with a double forward slash (//).

If you are quoting more than three lines of verse, format it as a block quote (indented on a new line with no quotation marks).

Quoting dialogue

Dialogue from two or more characters should be presented as a block quote.

Include the characters’ names in block capitals, followed by a period, and use a hanging indent for subsequent lines in a single character’s speech. Place the citation after the closing punctuation.

Oberon berates Robin Goodfellow for his mistake:

Frequently asked questions about MLA citations

No, do not use page numbers in your MLA in-text citations of Shakespeare plays. Instead, specify the act, scene, and line numbers of the quoted material, separated by periods, e.g. (Shakespeare 3.2.20–25).

This makes it easier for the reader to find the relevant passage in any edition of the text.

How do I cite multiple Shakespeare plays in an MLA paper?

If you cite multiple Shakespeare plays throughout your paper, the MLA in-text citation begins with an abbreviated version of the title (as shown here), e.g. ( Oth.  1.2.4). Each play should have its own Works Cited entry (even if they all come from the same collection).

If you cite only one Shakespeare play in your paper, you should include a Works Cited entry for that play, and your in-text citations should start with the author’s name, e.g. (Shakespeare 1.1.4).

Adapted from:

Caulfield, Jack. “How to Cite Shakespeare in MLA.”  Scribbr , June 2022, www.scribbr.com/mla/shakespeare-citation.

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How do I cite an edition of a work that contains the original text and a modernized version?

Note: This post relates to content in the eighth edition of the MLA Handbook . For up-to-date guidance, see the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook .

If you are citing an edition that contains two versions of a single work, such as a No Fear edition of one of Shakespeare’s plays, which has both the original text and an adaptation in modern English, it is generally clearest to create one entry for the edition. Use a note to explain that both versions of the text are quoted from the same edition. The following sentence, note, and works-cited-list entry provide examples:

The famous opening lines of Hamlet’s soliloquy in act 3, scene 1, “To be or not to be, that is the question,” are translated in the No Fear edition of the play as “The question is: is it better to be alive or dead?” (3.1.57). 1 Note 1. The edition I cite contains both the original text and a version in modern English.  Work Cited Shakespeare, William.  Hamlet .  Sparknotes , 2019, www.sparknotes.com/nofear/shakespeare/hamlet/.

Hamlet & Shakespeare: MLA Format Help

• Websites and Media
• MLA Format Help

Citing Shakespeare

• Shakespeare Citations in MLA
• How To Cite Shakespeare

MLA 8th Edition Examples

How do I cite...

Book: Author.  Title goes in italics. Publisher, Year. 

Fredrickson, George M. White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American and South African History . Oxford UP, 1982.

Website/Webpage: Site/article author. "Title of article goes in quotes."  Creator/sponsor/name of site.  Date of publication, full URL. Access date.

Deresiewicz, William. “The Death of the Artist- and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur.” The Atlantic, 28 Dec. 2014, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-death-of-the-artist-and-the-birth-of-the-creative-entrepreneur/383497/. Accessed 28 November 2016.

Video: Creator's name (only include if different from uploader name.) "Title of video in quotes."  Source of video,  uploader name if known, upload date, full URL. 

McGonigal, Jane. “Gaming and Productivity.”  YouTube,   uploaded by Big Think, 3 July 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkdzy9bWW3E.

Remember, any content you find in a database will have an MLA citation already prepared for you! If you can't locate a citation within a database, see Ms. Forfa for help.

For more help and examples, see the Purdue OWL MLA page.

Helpful Resources

• Sample Page from an MLA Essay Refer to this document for correct page formatting, in-text citations, and more
• Sample MLA Works Cited Page Easy reference for formatting, indenting, and citations

Core Elements of an MLA Citation

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Website navigation

Below are examples of several citation styles that can be used in papers, publications, and other projects.

A special thanks to Abbie Weinberg, Research and Reference Librarian at the Folger Shakespeare Library, for her expertise in preparing these citation styles.

If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, please contact us .

Citing a Specific Text

Modern language association (mla), in-text citation:.

(Shakespeare,  Romeo and Juliet from The Folger Shakespeare.)

Works Cited citation:

Shakespeare, William.  Romeo and Juliet from The Folger Shakespeare. Ed. Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston, and Rebecca Niles. Folger Shakespeare Library, [datetoday].  https://folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/romeo-and-juliet/

American Psychological Association (APA)

(Shakespeare, n.d.)

References citation:

Shakespeare, W. (n.d.)  Much Ado About Nothing (B. Mowat, P. Werstine, M. Poston, and R. Niles, eds.). The Folger Shakespeare. https://folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/much-ado-about-nothing/

Chicago/Turabian

Footnote/endnote citation:.

William Shakespeare.  A Midsummer Night’s Dream . Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston, Rebecca Niles, eds (Washington, DC: Folger Shakespeare Library, n.d.), accessed [datetoday]. https://folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/a-midsummer-nights-dream/

Bibliography citation:

Shakespeare, William.  A Midsummer Night’s Dream . Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston, and Rebecca Niles, eds. Folger Shakespeare Library. Accessed on [datetoday]. Washington, DC: Folger Shakespeare Library.  https://folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/a-midsummer-nights-dream/

Citing the Entire Collection

( Shakespeare’s Plays, Sonnets and Poems from The Folger Shakespeare.)

Shakespeare, William.  Shakespeare’s Plays, Sonnets and Poems  from The Folger Shakespeare. Ed. Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston, and Rebecca Niles. Folger Shakespeare Library, [datetoday].  https://folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/all-works

(The Folger Shakespeare. n.d.)

Folger Shakespeare Library. (n.d.)  Shakespeare’s Plays, Sonnets and Poems from The Folger Shakespeare. Retrieved from https://folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/all-works

Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston, Rebecca Niles, eds.,  Shakespeare’s Plays, Sonnets and Poems (Washington, DC: Folger Shakespeare Library, n.d.), accessed [datetoday]. https://folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/all-works .

Shakespeare’s Plays, Sonnets and Poems , from The Folger Shakespeare, ed. Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston, and Rebecca Niles. Washington, DC: Folger Shakespeare Library. Accessed on [datetoday]. https://folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/all-works .

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Hamlet Analysis Research and Essay: MLA 8

When formatting your Works Cited, remember T.A.D.I.

T: Times New Roman, 12 point font (the entire page) A: Alphabetical order D: Double spaced throughout I: Indent after the first line.

Quoting a Play or Literary Criticism

When you are citing a play in-text , you want to enter (Act. Scene. Line(s)). Ex: (1.3.14-17) refers to Act 1, Scene 3, Lines 14 to 17.  

Literary criticism and other indirect sources. Citing a source found in another source will require you to either find and cite the original source in your paper or use the following:   For  indirect quotations, use "qtd. in" to indicate the source you actually consulted . Introduce the quotation with the original author. For example:

Ravitch argues that high schools are pressured to act as "social service centers, and they don't do that well" (qtd. in Weisman 259).

Template for MLA 8

Instructions for citing in mla 8, use this template for all citations . if the item is absent, leave it out :  .

1. Author .

2. “ Title of article, photo, video, or chapter .”

3. Title of the website, magazine, or book ,

4. C ontributor ,

5. Version numbers listed: ed. vol. or no. ,

6. Publisher name ,

7. Publication date ,

8 . Page numbers: p. or pp .

9. Title of database or other larger container ,

10 . Publisher of database or larger container ,

11. URL or DOI ( for databases if available ) .

12. Accessed day month year .

Parenthetical Citations

Please use a citation after all direct quotes and after paraphrased information. Use a signal phrase before direct quotes. 

Example : According to Simon Parker "Shakespeare continues to amaze us after centuries" (Parker).

Works with author and page numbers: (Popoff 10).

Works with an author and no page numbers: (Parker).

Works without  an author or page number. Enter a shortened title in quotes: ("Seasonal").

Sample Works Cited

      Works Cited

Bentley, Evie. "Seasonal Affective Disorder." Psychology Review, Sept. 1999, p. 18. General OneFile,  http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A79381597/GPS?u=mlin_c_montytech&sid=GPS&xid=20e557aa. Accessed 27 Nov. 2018.

Bradbury, Ray. The Illustrated Man . Simon & Schuster, 2012.

“Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).” Mayo Clinic, 25 Oct. 2016, https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/seasonal-affective-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20364651. Accessed 27 Nov. 2018.

MLA 8 Examples

EXAMPLES OF COMMON MLA STYLE CITATIONS:

Print Book by a Single Author :

Benson, Jackson J.   The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer: a Biography . Viking, 1984.

Parenthetical citation :  (Benson 203).

Print Book by two or more authors:

Gielgud, John, and John Miller.  Acting Shakespeare . Scribner, 1992.

Parenthetical citation :  (Gielgud and Miller 54).

Print Magazine Article:

LaRoe, Lisa M. "LaSalle's Last Voyage."  National Geographic  May 1997: 72-83.

Parenthetical citation :  (LaRoe 82).

Print Encyclopedia:

"Adams, Abigail Smith."  Notable American Women, 1607-1950 . Vol.1. Belknap, 6-9.

Parenthetical citation :  ("Adams, Abigail Smith" 9).

Personal Interview:

Slater, Barbara. "Interview with Mrs. Ross." Telephone interview. 13 Nov. 2009.

Parenthetical citation:  (Slater).

Databases often provide the citation for you, but double-check for accuracy. If there is no author or date listed, leave it out.  The example “date of download” below is September 30, 2011 .

Database Article (originally a book source):

Kordich, Catherine J.   Bloom's How to Write about John Steinbeck.  Chelsea House, 2007.  Bloom's Literary Reference Online . www.fofweb.com.

Accessed 30 Sept. 2011.

Parenthetical citation :  (Kordich).

Database Article (directly written for the database-no author):

 "Congo Republic." World History: The Modern Era. ABC-CLIO, 2013. Web. 30 Sept. 2011. worldhistory.abc-clio.com. Accessed 30 Sept. 2011.

Parenthetical citation :  ("Congo Republic").

Webpage with Author :

Landow, George P. "Wages and the Costs of Living."  The Victorian Web: An Overview . 12 Dec. 2003. www.victorianweb.org. Accessed 30 Sept.

Parenthetical citation:  (Landow).

Webpage with No Author, Month, or Day:

"In Search of Shakespeare."  PBS . 2003. www.pbs.org/shakespeare. Accessed 30 Sept. 2011.

Parenthetical citation:  (“In Search of Shakespeare”).

Image Found Online - If no artist or title listed, omit artist & describe work for a title:

Klee, Paul.  Twittering Machine . 1922. Museum of Modern Art, New York.   The Artchive .  artchive.com/artchive/K/klee/twittering_machine.jpg.html.

Accessed 30 Sept. 2011.

Parenthetical citation :  (Klee).

Online Video Clip:

Skitzles Commercial . Dir. Brendokeelo. 3 Dec. 2007. youtube.com/watch?v=2XXAQxpvHUc. Accessed 30 Sept. 2011.

Parenthetical citation :  (“Skitzles Commercial”).

Crafting Parenthetical Citations and Signal Phrases

• Parenthetical Citations refer to the source where you found the information.   Everything that comes before the citation is assumed to have come from that source.
• They match sources in the Works Cited (MLA).
• They go after direct quotations, paraphrases, and summaries.
• They always go at the end of the sentence and the period goes  after  them.
• These are also called "in-text" citations.
• With a direct quote, the parenthetical citation goes between the end quote and the period.

Examples in MLA Style :

Paraphrase:  Because children were usually baptised soon after birth, we celebrate Shakespeare's birthday as April 23, 1564 ("William Shakespeare").

Quotation:  Shakespeare only mentions his wife once in his will, leaving her his "second best bed" ("William Shakespeare").

The parenthetical citations above relate to this citation from the Works Cited:

"William Shakespeare."  Britannica School , Encyclopædia Britannica, 30 Sep. 2016.   school.eb.com/levels/high/article/109536 . Accessed 27 Nov. 2016.

A "signal phrase" is used to introduce a quotation or paraphrased information. The following contains the signal phrase "According to." If the source material stated is from a database or the web and doesn't have page numbers, do not put anything in parenthesis afterwards.  If the source  has  page numbers, put the page number in parenthesis afterward the paraphrase.

Example :  According to Salisbury and Morris, the entertainment industry was created during the English Renaissance.

This is from the Works Cited:

Salisbury, Joyce and Lawrence Morris. "Theater in England: 15th and 16th Centuries."  Daily Life through History .  ABC-CLIO,  2015. http://abc-clio.com/worldhistory Accessed 27 Nov. 2016.

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Citation Guide- MLA: Citation for Drama

• Citation Basics
• Quick Citation Examples
• Creating Citations
• Citing Works Quoted in Another Source
• Citing Multiple Sources by the Same Author
• Citing Images & Tables
• Citing Artworks
• Citing Encyclopedias & Dictionaries
• Citing Sources in other Languages
• Citing Chinese Sources in a paper written in English
• Citing Religious Texts
• Citing Other Formats
• Citation in PowerPoint Presentations
• In-Text Referencing
• 'Works Cited' List Example
• Different Ways to Use Sources
• Essay formatting
• FINALLY...Check your Citations carefully!!
• Citation for Music
• Citation for Drama
• Citation for Art

Citation for dramatic works and other sources connected to theatre and performance is very similar to general website or book citation.  In both instances you are looking for some or all of the following:

Recommended Citation Generators

NoodleTools and the  OSLIS Citation Maker  are strongly recommended because they has source templates for images, audio recordings, video recordings, and live performances - all of which may be relevant to a drama student.  For training in either tool please contact the Librarian.  NoodleTools support is also available here .  

Works Cited

Here are examples of citations of common drama resources:

Quoting Dialogue 

• Use a colon to separate your argument and the dialogue.  
• Start the dialogue on its own separate line
• Start the dialogue with the speakers name in CAPITALS followed by a period.
• Indent the first line of dialogue 1/2 an inch from the left margin
• All following lines of dialogue from that character should have additional indention
• Start a new line when a new person speaks.

Here is an example from the MLA Handbook (80):

In-Text Citation for... Plays

There are special rules for making in-text citations for plays.  This is because you want to make it as easy as possible for your reader to look up your in-text citations if they want to.

If your play has line numbers

Some of the older plays (like the works of Shakespeare) use line numbers.  If you are using a play that has line numbers use these instead of page numbers.  Also include the act and scene information, separate each with a period (act.scene.line).

The following example is from Hamlet, act two, scene two, lines 371-372.  The in-text citation would be formatted like this:

The changeability of Hamlet's 'madness' is reflected when he says, "I am but mad north-north-west.  When the / wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw" (Shakespeare, 2.2.371-372).

If your play does not have line numbers

Many modern plays do not have line numbers.  When this happens please give the page number first, add a semicolon, and then give any other identifying information.

The following example is from The Crucible, page 109, act 3.  The in-text citation would be formatted like this:

The irony in this example is that in copying and repeating back Mary Warren's words the girls are disempowering Mary and gaining an upper hand over the court proceedings, as they repeat "I have no power" (Miller 109; act 3) they are actually demonstrating the power of mimicry. 

If your play is in verse

Some plays, such as works by Shakespeare, deliver dialogue in verse form.  In such instances please indicate the line breaks within your in-text citation by using the forward slash / symbol.  For example:

The start of the play sees Romeo seemingly 'in love' with Rosaline, the niece of a Capulet.  This an early foreshadowing of the later, deeper, affection for Juliet - and the subsequent conflicts between personal affection and the burden of familial loyalty: “Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love: / Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!” (Shakespeare, 1.1.169-170).

In-Text Citation for... Time-based media 

With time-based media like films, digital recordings, YouTube clips, and television, cite the time, or range of times for the clip or still image you are referencing in your works.  Cite the time using the following format ( Title Hours:Minutes:Seconds). Like a page number, this helps to direct your reader to the exact place you are referring to.

For example:

The Umbrella Academy's reliance on a strong and popular soundtrack to set tone and aid characterization is established in the very first episode as the siblings dance to the same song, yet each still separated by talent, physical distance, and individual style ("We Only See Each Other at Weddings and Funerals" 00:30:30-00:32:55).

Images for Theatre Arts

Please refer to the  MLA8 LibGuide for information about citing images .  

Translations

If you think that the reader will not understand a quote in the original language you can provide a translation.  The translation usually follows the original quote, but you can change this order if you think this will be clearer for the reader.  If the translation is your own please show this by inserting "my trans." in the parenthetical citation.

For example, for a translation included in the main body of a work:

Sévigné responds to praise of her much admired letters by acknowledging that “there is nothing stiff about them” (“pour figées, elles ne le sont pas”; my trans.; 489).

Sévigné responds to praise of her much admired letters by acknowledging that “there is nothing stiff about them” ‘pour figées, elles ne le sont pas’ (my trans.; 489).

Examples from MLA Handbook (p.90)

"Cite My Sources: MLA."  Oregon School Library Information System , secondary.oslis.org/cite-sources/mla. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020. 

"How do I cite a photo or other image reproduced in a website article?"  MLA Style Center , 14 Mar. 2019, style.mla.org/citing-images-from-web-sites/. Accessed 4 March 2022.

“How Do I Cite a Screenshot or Frame Capture in a Caption and in My Works-Cited List?”  MLA Style Center , 16 May 2018, https://style.mla.org/citing-screenshots-frame-captures/. Accessed 11 Jan. 2022.

MLA Handbook . 8th ed., Kindle, Modern Language Association of America, 2016.

The MLA Style Center: Writing Resources from the Modern Language Association . Modern Language Association, 2020, style.mla.org. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.

The Purdue OWL Family of Sites . The Writing Lab and OWL at Purdue and Purdue U, 2020, owl.purdue.edu/index.html. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.

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English IV : Hamlet Literary Criticism Essay: MLA Citation

• MLA Citation

How to Create a Works Cited List

NoodleTools can assist in creating Works Cited lists in the MLA citation style. To do this, create a New Project  in NoodleTools and select MLA and Advanced .

NoodleTools Tutorials

NoodleTools has changed its look! Use this video about creating a new project and other tutorials if you need help using NoodleTools.

What is the MLA Citation Style?

Each citation consists of two parts:

In-Text citation (also known as the parenthetical reference) - provides brief identifying information within the text.

Works Cited list  - provides full bibliographic information at the end of a paper.

This guide will go over how to create MLA citations, in particular in-text citations. For more information about MLA citations, please refer to the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th Edition , located at the Upper School Library Reference Desk, or the Purdue Online Writing Lab .

How to Create In-text Citations

• Author or work mentioned in sentence
• Citing more than one work by the same author
• Group or corporate authors
• Unknown author
• Two or three authors
• More than three authors
• No page numbers
• Two or more authors with the same last name
• Exact quotation
• Citations taken from a secondary source

In MLA, in-text citations are called parenthetical references. They use the author's last name followed by the page number referenced in the work. The reference is placed in parentheses usually at the end of the sentence and before the period.  Each source in the Works Cited list (found at the end of the paper)  corresponds to an in-text citation in the body of the text .

Sample in-text citation --> This point has been argued previously (Said 3-4).

Corresponding Works Cited list source -->  Said, Edward. Orientalism . New York: Vintage Books, 1994. Print.

If the context makes it clear what work is being cited, only the page number need appear in the parentheses . For example, if the sentence already includes the author's name, or you are citing the work again and it is obvious which work you are citing, only the page number is needed.

Said makes a similar argument (3-4).

Later, the protagonist of Jane Eyre proclaims, "I would always rather be happy than dignified" (413).

If citing more than one work by the same author in a paper, then the in-text citation should contain the author's name, a comma,  the title of the work (if brief) or a shortened version italicized, and the page numbers.

We should all try to "live in the Past, the Present, and the Future" (Dickens, A Christmas Carol 95).

If the author's name is already in the sentence, just the title of the work (italicized) and the page number are needed.

We should all take Dickens' advice to "live in the Past, the Present, and the Future" ( A Christmas Carol 95).

When an author is an organization, use the full name of the group or a shortened form in the in-text citation.

(National Institutes of Health 115)

When the reference in the Works Cited list does not have an author, use a few words of the title in place of the author in the in-text citation.

("Recent innovations" 231)

When the reference in the Works Cited list has two or three authors, use the last name of each in the in-text citation.

(Smith, Jones, and Brown 323)

When the reference in the Works Cited list has more than three authors, give all the authors' last names OR just use the first and "et al." for the rest. Make sure that your in-text citation matches the entry in your Works Cited list.

(Bia, Pedreno, Small, Finch, Patterson 161)

(Bia et al. 161)

When the reference in the Works Cited list does not have page numbers, use paragraph numbers, if available.

If the work does not have page numbers or paragraph numbers, include the name of the author in the sentence  instead of using a parenthetical reference . To learn more, refer to the MLA Handbook, sections 6.4.1 and 6.4.2.

When paragraph numbers are available --> (Smith para 17)

When no page numbers or paragraph numbers are available --> As Smith points out...

If the Works Cited list contains two or more authors with the same last name, include the first initial of the author in the in-text citation.

(A. DeCarrera 213)

If the initial is also the same, use the whole first name.

(Annette DeCarrera 213)

If the reference is to an exact quotation, the in-text citation is placed after the quote.

It may be true that "the attitude of the observer is of primary importance" (Robertson 136).

Citations taken from a secondary source should generally be avoided; consult the original work whenever possible.

If only an indirect source is available, put the abbreviation qtd. in (quoted in) before the indirect source in the in-text citation and include the indirect source in the Works Cited list. To learn more, please refer to section 6.4.7 of the MLA manual.

In-text citation --> In a May 1800 letter to Watt, Creighton wrote, "The excellent Satanism reflects immortal honour on the club" (qtd. in Hunt and Jacob 493).

Works Cited list entry --> Hunt, Lynn, and Margaret Jacob. "The Affective Revolution in 1790s Britain." Eighteenth-Century Studies 34.4 (2001): 491-521. Print.

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Citing a Play

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To cite or not to cite? That is the question! And the answer is, of course, that you should always cite your sources. Failing to include citations for any sources that you’ve used in the writing of your essay or paper could mean that you unintentionally commit plagiarism, which can have tragic consequences!

In order to correctly cite Hamlet as a source — or any other play — when using a book as the source, you’ll need to gather the following pieces of information. Whether you use them all in your citation depends on the format you’re using:

• Name of author
• Title of play
• Year of publication
• Place of publication

Note that, as classic works such as plays can be published by multiple publishers (a quick search of an online bookshop returned over 100 results for Hamlet in paperback!), it’s important that the publisher details refer to the copy of the book that you are using. Otherwise it’s very difficult for a lecturer to check your sources, or refer to them for more information.

If your copy of Hamlet has been edited or translated then you’ll also need to include:

• Name of editor or translator

What you might also choose to do is provide some additional identifying information that relates to the play in general. For example:

• Division numbers (i.e. part, act, scene)

You would also use division number identifiers if you wanted to cite a section of a live performance of a play. If you wanted the citation to refer specifically on one particular person or persons — an actor, character or the director, for example — you could include:

• Contributors name

How you structure play citations will depend on which citation format you’re opting to use. If you’re unsure, ask your lecturer or tutor. Examples include:  

Author’s last name, first name. Title. Translated or edited by first name last name, publisher, year published, page numbers.

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Edited by George Richard Hibbard, Oxford UP, 2008, pp. 18-22.

Author’s last name, first initial. (Year published). Title . In First Initial. Editor Last Name (Ed.), Title of larger work/collection. Publisher city, state/country: Publisher.

Shakespeare, W. (1996). Hamlet. In T. J. Spencer (Ed.), The new Penguin Shakespeare. London, England: Penguin Books.

Correctly citing your sources is not only useful for the person reading your work, it’s also an ethical and moral obligation — ensuring that you don’t, unintentionally or otherwise, pass off someone else’s words or ideas as your own. As Polonious says in Hamlet, “This above all: to thine own self be true!” The tools at Cite This For Me make this easier with MLA format and APA format citation generators and a useful Harvard Referencing generator too.

If you’re citing a play performance, you will need the name of the play author, title of the play, director of the performance, the name of the performing company, performance date, and the location (Place Name and city).

Play performance template and example:

Last Name, First Name. Play Title . Directed by Director’s Full Name, Name of the Performing Company, Performance Day Month Year, Place Name, City.

Yee, Lauren. Cambodian Rock Band . Directed by Harold Wolpert, South Coast Repertory, 12 Feb. 2020, Signature Theater, New York City.

If you’re citing a play script, the citation uses the same information as a book citation.

Play scrip template and example:

Last Name, First Name. Play Title . Publisher Name, Year published.

Hwang, David H. M Butterfly . Plume, 1989.

Use the formats and examples below to cite a play according to Chicago style. Please note that these citations are for the book forms of plays, rather than live performances, which are cited differently. Please also note that the format differs depending on whether the play is a stand-alone publication or part of an edited anthology.

Bibliography Formats

Stand-alone Play

Author’s Last Name, First Name. Title of Book . Edition (if applicable). Place of Publication: Name of Publisher, Year of Publication.

Play from an Anthology

To reference a play found in an anthology, use the format for a contribution to a multiauthor book:

Author’s Last Name, First Name. “Title of Play.” In Title of Book , edited by Name of Editor(s), inclusive page range. Place of Publication: Name of Publisher, Year of Publication.

Bibliography Examples

Albee, Edward. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? . First Edition. New York: Atheneum, 1963.

Wilde, Oscar. “The Canterville Ghost.” In The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde , edited by Ian Small, 109-122. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Footnote or Endnote Formats

When citing a play by its book, canto, stanza, or another identifier such as the stanza and line; act, scene, and line; or similar divisions, you can omit publication facts. If you include page numbers, you must include the specific edition of the play.

First Note: Stand-alone Play

When citing a specific play division, use a slightly different format:

1. Author Last Name, Title of Play, bk. #, canto #, frag. #,  line #, or st. #.

When citing a specific edition or a play without specific divisions use:

1. Title of Play , editor/edition details. (Place: Publisher Name, Year). Page #-#.

Shortened Note: Stand-alone Play

2. Author Last Name, Title of the Play, Specific Division #.

2. Title of the Play (Editor), Page #-#.

First Note: Play from an Anthology

1. Author First Name Last Name, “Title of Play,” in Title of Anthology , ed., Editor First Name Last Name(s) (Place: Publisher Name, Year), Page #-#.

Shortened Note: Play from an Anthology

2. Author Last Name, “Title of Play,” Page #-#.

Footnote or Endnote Examples

1. Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 1.2.30-32. References are to act, scene, and line.

1. Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ? ed. Michael Y. Bennett. (New York: Atheneum, 1963), 124-127.

2. Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf , 1.2.30.

2. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Bennett), 125.

1. Wilde, Oscar, “The Canterville Ghost,” in The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde , ed., Ian Small (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 110.

Wilde, “The Canterville Ghost,” 110.

MLA Citation Generator

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MLA Format Guide for MLA (9th Edition)

MLA citations have two main parts that work together to identify the sources you’ve used for a paper and each of the specific places in your paper where you directly quote or paraphrase from a source:

• A Works Cited list
• Located at the end of your paper
• Contains a list of full references for every source you cited in your paper
• Alphabetized by author’s last name
• In-text citations
• Appear in the text of your paper, after any place where you directly quote or paraphrase from a source
• Consist of just the author name and relevant page number of the quote source
• Are written inside

How to Write an MLA Works Cited

The Works Cited list (sometimes also called a reference list or bibliography) contains the full references for every source you used in writing your paper. The references are alphabetized in the list by author’s last name.

Every entry in an MLA Works Cited—whether for a book, website, journal, etc.—is built from up to nine components:

• Author. “Title of the Source.” Title of the Container , Other contributors, Version, Number, Publisher, Publication date, Location.

If a particular reference you are using doesn’t have any information for one of these components, then you just leave out that component.

Here's a bit more information about each of the components that will let you handle any type of MLA works cited entry.

Author in MLA Format

How you handle the author depends on how many authors the work has, or if the author is an organization rather than a single person.

• 1 author : Invert the author’s name (Last Name, First Name)
• Andrews, Julianne
• 2 authors : Include both authors in the order in which they appear on the work, inverting the first author’s name, followed by an “and” and then the second author’s name written normally.
• Andrews, Julianne and Arthur Smith
• 3+ authors : Include the first author listed on the work, inverted, followed by the phrase “et al”
• Andrews, Julianne, et al
• Organization : If the work was written by an Organization rather than by a person or group of people, then just write out the name of the organization.
• No author : If a work has no listed author at all, then you can leave out the Author component entirely and start with the Title of the Source. (Note: when alphabetizing the entry by the first letter of the Title of the Source, ignore articles that start the title such as “The,” “A,” etc.)

Title of the Source in MLA Format

Use the entire title of your source, including subtitles. Subtitles should be separated from the main title by a colon.

The formatting for the source depends on whether it’s self contained or part of a larger whole (such as an entire book, website, or movie), or is part of a larger work (such as a story in an anthology, an article in a magazine, etc.):

• If the source is a self contained unit : The title should be italicized.
• Andrews, Julianne. The Friendly Giraffe . Knopf, 2011.
• If the source is part of a larger work : The title should be placed within quotation marks.
• Andrews, Julianne. “The Best Game Ever Played.” Essays on Sports , Harcourt, 2017, pp. 17-31.

Regardless of whether it’s inside quotes or italicized, the title of the source should be written in title case, which means you capitalize every word other than articles, conjunctions, and prepositions.

Title of the Container in MLA Format

The “container” refers to a larger work that contains the source, such as a magazine that contains an article. If a source isn’t a part of a longer work (such as an entire book), then leave out the Title of Container component.

The Title of the Container should always be italicized:

Common examples of containers are:

• A book containing short stories or essays
• A magazine or newspaper containing articles
• An encyclopedia containing entries
• A website containing articles or other entries
• A TV series containing episodes

Other Contributors

If there are people who contributed to a work besides the author(s), include those names in the “Other Contributors” component.

Other contributors should be formatted by identifying what the person did and then the person’s name written out normally. For example:

• Andrews, Julianne. “The Best Game Ever Played.” Great Sports Writing of 2018 , edited by Carlos Mendes, Harcourt, 2017, pp. 17-31.

Common types of work that are result in people being included as contributors are:

• Translated by
• Illustrated by
• Directed by

If there are different versions or editions of your source, specify which version your specific source belongs to:

• Andrews, Julianne. “The Best Game Ever Played.” Great Sports Writing of 2018 , edited by Carlos Mendes, 3rd ed, Harcourt, 2017, pp. 17-31.

Common reasons for the inclusion of a version number for an entry are:

• A 2nd (or 3rd or 4th, etc.) edition of a source
• A director’s cut of a movie
• An anniversary or expanded edition

Many types of sources are numbered in some way, and in such cases the MLA entry should capture that numbering:

• Andrews, Julianne. “The Best Game Ever Played.” Great Sports Writing of 2018 , edited by Carlos Mendes, 3rd ed, vol. 3, Harcourt, 2017, pp. 17-31.

Numbering most often occurs for sources that have containers. Common examples include:

• Journals are often divided into volumes (“vol. 3”)
• Magazines and some periodicals may be numbered (“no. 16”)
• Television shows often have season and episode numbers (“Season 4, Episode 2”)

If a source has multiple numbers, separate the numbers with commas (“vol 3, no. 16”).

Not all sources will have a publisher—this component usually only applies to books and to movies. For movies, the production company is treated as the “publisher.”

Publication date

You should include as specific a publication date as possible, which can range from just the year all the way down to the minute. Ranges are acceptable.

• Andrews, Julianne. “The Best Game Ever Played.” Great Sports Writing of 2018, edited by Carlos Mendes, 3rd ed, vol. 3, Harcourt, 2017, pp. 17-31.

The most common ways to represent the publication date are:

• Year : 2001
• Month/Year : Apr. 1976 (note that months should be abbreviated to their first three letters followed by a period, such as “Apr.”)
• Day/Month/Year : 2 Apr. 1976 (note that the day should precede the month)
• Precise time and date : 2 Apr. 1976, 5:15 p.m.
• Year Range : 1975-1977
• Month/Year Range : Apr. 1976–Apr. 1977
• If there’s no date : If you can’t find a publication date, instead use the day/month/year format for the day on which you accessed the information and use the word “Accessed” to make clear the distinction.
• Andrews, Julianne. “The Best Game Ever Played.” Great Sports Writing , edited by Carlos Mendes, Accessed 2 Apr. 2018, www.greatsportswriting.com/best.

The location component generally only applies to references that either have containers or that is an event or physical object that occurred or you encountered in a physical place.

• For a chapter, essay, story, or other part of a book : Include a page range.
• Andrews, Julianne. “The Best Game Ever Played.” Great Sports Writing of 2018 , edited by Carlos Mendes, 3rd ed, vol. 3, Harcourt, 2017, pp. 217-231.
• For a web page : Include the URL, leaving out the “http://” or “https://”.
• For a printed periodical article : Include a page range.
• Andrews, Julianne. “The Best Game Ever Played.” The Sports Magazine, 2 Jan. 2022, 25-39.
• For an online journal : There are two options
• Include a URL, leaving out the “http://” or “https://”
• Andrews, Julianne. “A Statistical Analysis to Identify the Best Games Ever Played.” Sports Analytics , Accessed 2 Apr. 2018, www.sportsanalytics.org/1249.
• A DOI—digital object identifier—which are sometimes assigned to journal articles to provide a link to that article that will never change. If an article has one, use it instead of a URL
• Example: doi: 11.1633/tox.31266
• Andrews, Julianne. “A Statistical Analysis to Identify the Best Games Ever Played.” Sports Analytics , Accessed 2 Apr. 2018, doi: 11.1633/tox.31266.
• For a physical object located in a specific place : Include the place where you encountered the object, including the name of any institution and the location of that institution.
• Goldsworthy, Andy. The Wall that Went for a Walk . 1999, Storm King Art Center, Windsor, NY.

How to Write MLA In-Text Citations

In-text citations do two things:

• They identify the places in your paper where you either directly quote or paraphrase a source.
• They contain just enough information to refer to the full entry in the Works Cited list, so a reader can tell which source you quoted or paraphrased from.

MLA In-Text Citations Format

MLA in-text citations follow two basic formats:

• The author’s last name and a page number or other location inside parentheses:
• The greatest game ever played wasn’t “great because of what happened on the field, but because of what happened off of it” (Andrews 71).
• If the author is named in the sentence, then the in-text citation can include just the page:
• As Andrews puts it, the greatest game every played wasn’t “great because of what happened on the field, but because of what happened off of it” (71).

Additions to Basic In-Text Citations Format

There are a few scenarios in which the formatting of in-text MLA citations changes just a bit:

• Two authors : Use the last names of both authors separated by an “and.”
• (Andrews and Smith 71).
• Three authors : Within the parentheses, include the last name of the first author along with “et al.” When mentioning the authors outside the parentheses, use the last name of the first author along with the phrase “and colleagues.”
• (Andrews et al. 71).
• No author : Within the parentheses, include an abbreviated reference to the first two or three words of the source title in the Works Cited entry, and format the in-text citation to match the use of italicization or quotation marks in Works Cited entry. Outside the parentheses, use the entire source title, formatted correctly with quotation marks or italics.
• (The Best Game 71).

• Free Tools for Students
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😕 What is an MLA Citation Generator?

An MLA citation generator is a software tool designed to automatically create academic citations in the Modern Language Association (MLA) citation format. The generator will take information such as document titles, author, and URLs as in input, and output fully formatted citations that can be inserted into the Works Cited page of an MLA-compliant academic paper.

The citations on a Works Cited page show the external sources that were used to write the main body of the academic paper, either directly as references and quotes, or indirectly as ideas.

👩‍🎓 Who uses an MLA Citation Generator?

MLA style is most often used by middle school and high school students in preparation for transition to college and further education. Ironically, MLA style is not actually used all that often beyond middle and high school, with APA (American Psychological Association) style being the favored style at colleges across the country.

It is also important at this level to learn why it's critical to cite sources, not just how to cite them.

🙌 Why should I use a Citation Generator?

Writing citations manually is time consuming and error prone. Automating this process with a citation generator is easy, straightforward, and gives accurate results. It's also easier to keep citations organized and in the correct order.

The Works Cited page contributes to the overall grade of a paper, so it is important to produce accurately formatted citations that follow the guidelines in the official MLA Handbook .

⚙️ How do I use MyBib's MLA Citation Generator?

It's super easy to create MLA style citations with our MLA Citation Generator. Scroll back up to the generator at the top of the page and select the type of source you're citing. Books, journal articles, and webpages are all examples of the types of sources our generator can cite automatically. Then either search for the source, or enter the details manually in the citation form.

The generator will produce a formatted MLA citation that can be copied and pasted directly into your document, or saved to MyBib as part of your overall Works Cited page (which can be downloaded fully later!).

MyBib supports the following for MLA style:

Daniel is a qualified librarian, former teacher, and citation expert. He has been contributing to MyBib since 2018.

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MLA Works Cited Page: Basic Format

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This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

According to MLA style, you must have a Works Cited page at the end of your research paper. All entries in the Works Cited page must correspond to the works cited in your main text.

Basic rules

• Begin your Works Cited page on a separate page at the end of your research paper. It should have the same one-inch margins and last name, page number header as the rest of your paper.
• Only the title should be centered. The citation entries themselves should be aligned with the left margin.
• Double space all citations, but do not skip spaces between entries.
• Indent the second and subsequent lines of citations by 0.5 inches to create a hanging indent.
• List page numbers of sources efficiently, when needed. If you refer to a journal article that appeared on pages 225 through 250, list the page numbers on your Works Cited page as pp. 225-50 (Note: MLA style dictates that you should omit the first sets of repeated digits. In our example, the digit in the hundreds place is repeated between 2 25 and 2 50, so you omit the 2 from 250 in the citation: pp. 225-50). If the excerpt spans multiple pages, use “pp.”   Note that MLA style uses a hyphen in a span of pages.
• If only one page of a print source is used, mark it with the abbreviation “p.” before the page number (e.g., p. 157). If a span of pages is used, mark it with the abbreviation “pp.” before the page number (e.g., pp. 157-68).
• If you're citing an article or a publication that was originally issued in print form but that you retrieved from an online database, you should type the online database name in italics. You do not need to provide subscription information in addition to the database name.
• For online sources, you should include a location to show readers where you found the source. Many scholarly databases use a DOI (digital object identifier). Use a DOI in your citation if you can; otherwise use a URL. Delete “http://” from URLs. The DOI or URL is usually the last element in a citation and should be followed by a period.
• All works cited entries end with a period.

Additional basic rules new to MLA 2021

New to MLA 2021:

• Apps and databases should be cited only when they are containers of the particular works you are citing, such as when they are the platforms of publication of the works in their entirety, and not an intermediary that redirects your access to a source published somewhere else, such as another platform. For example, the Philosophy Books app should be cited as a container when you use one of its many works, since the app contains them in their entirety. However, a PDF article saved to the Dropbox app is published somewhere else, and so the app should not be cited as a container.
• If it is important that your readers know an author’s/person’s pseudonym, stage-name, or various other names,  then you should generally cite the better-known form of author’s/person’s name. For example, since the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is better-known by his pseudonym, cite Lewis Carroll opposed to Charles Dodgson (real name).
• For annotated bibliographies , annotations should be appended at the end of a source/entry with one-inch indentations from where the entry begins. Annotations may be written as concise phrases or complete sentences, generally not exceeding one paragraph in length.

Capitalization and punctuation

• Capitalize each word in the titles of articles, books, etc, but do not capitalize articles (the, an), prepositions, or conjunctions unless one is the first word of the title or subtitle: Gone with the Wind, The Art of War, There Is Nothing Left to Lose .
• Use italics (instead of underlining) for titles of larger works (books, magazines) and quotation marks for titles of shorter works (poems, articles)

Listing author names

Entries are listed alphabetically by the author's last name (or, for entire edited collections, editor names). Author names are written with the last name first, then the first name, and then the middle name or middle initial when needed:

Do not  list titles (Dr., Sir, Saint, etc.) or degrees (PhD, MA, DDS, etc.) with names. A book listing an author named "John Bigbrain, PhD" appears simply as "Bigbrain, John." Do, however, include suffixes like "Jr." or "II." Putting it all together, a work by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be cited as "King, Martin Luther, Jr." Here the suffix following the first or middle name and a comma.

More than one work by an author

If you have cited more than one work by a particular author, order the entries alphabetically by title, and use three hyphens in place of the author's name for every entry after the first:

Burke, Kenneth. A Grammar of Motives . [...]

---. A Rhetoric of Motives . [...]

When an author or collection editor appears both as the sole author of a text and as the first author of a group, list solo-author entries first:

Heller, Steven, ed. The Education of an E-Designer .

Heller, Steven, and Karen Pomeroy. Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design.

Work with no known author

Alphabetize works with no known author by their title; use a shortened version of the title in the parenthetical citations in your paper. In this case, Boring Postcards USA has no known author:

Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulations.  [...]

Boring Postcards USA  [...]

Burke, Kenneth. A Rhetoric of Motives . [...] 

Work by an author using a pseudonym or stage-name

New to MLA 9th edition, there are now steps to take for citing works by an author or authors using a pseudonym, stage-name, or different name. 

If the person you wish to cite is well-known, cite the better-known form of the name of the author. For example, since Lewis Carroll is  not only a pseudonym of Charles Dodgson , but also the better-known form of the author’s name, cite the former name opposed to the latter. 

If the real name of the author is less well-known than their pseudonym, cite the author’s pseudonym in square brackets following the citation of their real name: “Christie, Agatha [Mary Westmacott].”

Authors who published various works under many names may be cited under a single form of the author’s name. When the form of the name you wish to cite differs from that which appears on the author’s work, include the latter in square brackets following an italicized published as : “Irving, Washington [ published as Knickerbocker, Diedrich].”.

Another acceptable option, in cases where there are only two forms of the author’s name, is to cite both forms of the author’s names as separate entries along with cross-references in square brackets: “Eliot, George [ see also Evans, Mary Anne].”.

Citation guides

All you need to know about citations

How to cite “Hamlet” (movie)

Apa citation.

Formatted according to the APA Publication Manual 7 th edition. Simply copy it to the References page as is.

If you need more information on APA citations check out our APA citation guide or start citing with the BibguruAPA citation generator .

Branagh, K. (1996). Hamlet . Columbia Pictures.

Chicago style citation

Formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style 17 th edition. Simply copy it to the References page as is.

If you need more information on Chicago style citations check out our Chicago style citation guide or start citing with the BibGuru Chicago style citation generator .

Branagh, Kenneth. 1996. Hamlet . United States: Columbia Pictures.

MLA citation

Formatted according to the MLA handbook 9 th edition. Simply copy it to the Works Cited page as is.

If you need more information on MLA citations check out our MLA citation guide or start citing with the BibGuru MLA citation generator .

Branagh, Kenneth. Hamlet . Columbia Pictures, 1996.

Other citation styles (Harvard, Turabian, Vancouver, ...)

BibGuru offers more than 8,000 citation styles including popular styles such as AMA, ASA, APSA, CSE, IEEE, Harvard, Turabian, and Vancouver, as well as journal and university specific styles. Give it a try now: Cite Hamlet now!

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