referencing plays in essays

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How to Quote and Cite a Play in an Essay Using MLA Format

Last Updated: October 12, 2023

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. This article has been viewed 384,857 times.

MLA (Modern Language Association) format is a popular citation style for papers and essays. You may be unsure how to quote and cite play using MLA format in your essay for a class. Start by following the correct formatting for a quote from one speaker or from multiple speakers in the play. Then, use the correct citation style for a prose play or a verse play.

Template and Examples

Quoting Dialogue from One Speaker

• For example, if you were quoting a character from the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, you would write, In Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , the character Honey says...

• For example, if you are quoting the character George from the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee, you would write, “George says,…” or “George states,…”.

• For example, if you are quoting from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , you would write: Martha notes, "Truth or illusion, George; you don’t know the difference."

• For example, if you were quoting from Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure , you would write: Claudio states “the miserable have no other medicine / But only hope.”

Quoting Dialogue from Multiple Speakers

• You do not need to use quotation marks when you are quoting dialogue by multiple speakers from a play. The blank space will act as a marker, rather than quotation marks.

• MARTHA. Truth or illusion, George; you don’t know the difference.
• GEORGE. No, but we must carry on as though we did.
• MARTHA. Amen.

• Verse dialogue is indented 1 ¼ inch (3.17cm) from the left margin.

• RUTH. Eat your eggs, Walter.
• WALTER. (Slams the table and jumps up) --DAMN MY EGGS--DAMN ALL THE EGGS THAT EVER WAS!
• RUTH. Then go to work.
• WALTER. (Looking up at her) See--I’m trying to talk to you ‘bout myself--(Shaking his head with the repetition)--and all you can say is eat them eggs and go to work.

Citing a Quote from a Prose Play

• If you are quoting dialogue from one speaker, place the citation at the end of the quoted dialogue, in the text.
• If you are quoting dialogue from multiple speakers, place the citation at the end of the block quote.

• For example, you may write: “(Albee…)” or “(Hansberry…)”

• For example, you may write, “(Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? ...).”
• If you have mentioned the title of the play once already in an earlier citation in your essay, you do not need to mention it again in the citations for the play moving forward.

• For example, you may write, “(Albee 10; act 1).
• If you are including the title of the play, you may write: “(Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 10; act 1).”

Citing a Quote from a Verse Play

• For example, if the quote appears in act 4, scene 4 of the play, you will write, “(4.4…)”.

• For example, if the quote appears on lines 33 to 35, you will write, “(33-35).”
• The completed citation would look like: “(4.4.33-35)”.

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About This Article

To quote and cite a play in your essay using MLA format, start by referencing the author and title of the play in the main body of your essay. Then, name the speaker of the quote so it’s clear who’s talking. For example, write, “In Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? the character Honey says…” After introducing the quote, frame the dialogue with quotation marks to make it clear that it’s a direct quote from a text. If your dialogue is written in verse, use forward slashes to indicate each line break. For more tips from our English co-author, including how to quote dialogue between multiple speakers in your essay, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Home / Guides / Citation Guides / How to Cite Sources / How to Cite a Play in APA, MLA, or Chicago

How to Cite a Play in APA, MLA, or Chicago

You can cite a play as either a live performance or script.

Citing a Live Performance

EasyBib has a form to cite a performance that has been viewed live. For instructions on how to cite a live performance, visit this guide on citing Hamilton  the musical in MLA, APA, and Chicago .

Citing a Play Script

If you are citing a play found as an entire source, cite it as a book (and use our book citation form ).

MLA Format (9 th edition)

STRUCTURES:

(Playwright last name page#)

Works Cited:

Playwright last name, First name. Play Title. Publisher, edition (if applicable), publication year.

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

APA 7 Format

If you’re merely paraphrasing or discussing a play in general terms, you’re not required to use a page number or other locator. But if you directly quote a play script, you must include a location for the relevant passage. For plays, this often means including a page number(s).

However, some plays use books, chapters, verses, lines, or cantos to distinguish specific parts of a play. The examples below include citations for both a modern play script with a page number and a play by Shakespeare with an act, scene, and line number.

(Since Shakespeare’s works appear in republications, there are two years in the source citations: the original publication year/the republication year).

(Playwright last name, year, p. page#)

           (Playwright last name, year, Act#.Scene#.Line#)

References:

Playwright last name, First initials. (Year published). Play Title . Publisher.

           Playwright last name, First initial. (Year of republished play). Classic Play Title. (First initials. Last Name, Ed.). Publisher. (Original work published Year)

(Hwang, 1989, p. 22)

Hwang, D. H. (1989).  M butterfly . Plume.

          (Shakespeare, 1603/2008, 1.4.5)

Shakespeare, W. (2008). Hamlet (S. Greenblatt, Ed.). W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. (Original work published 1603)

Chicago Format

Author-Date Format In-text:

(Playwright Last Name Publication Year, page#)

         (Playwright Last Name Publication Year, Act#.Scene#.Line#)

Author-Date Format Reference:

Playwright Last Name, First Name. Publication Year. Play Title. City: Publisher.

Playwright last name, First Name. Publication Year. Classic Play Title , edited by First Name Last Name. City: Publisher.

Note Format:

• Playwright First Name Last Name, Play Title (City: Publisher, Year), page #.
• Classic Play Title , ed. Editor First Name Last Name. (City: Publisher, Year), Act#.Scene#.Line#. References are to act, scene, and line.

Bibliography Format:

Playwright Last Name, First name. Play Title . City: Publisher, Year.

          Classic Play Title . Edited by First Name Last Name. Edition Details. City: Publisher, Year.

Author-Date:

(Hwang 1989, 22)

           (Shakespeare 1603, 1.4.5)

Hwang, David Henry. 1989.  M Butterfly . New York: Plume.

           Shakespeare, William. 2004. Hamlet,  edited by Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House.

• David Henry Hwang, M Butterfly  (New York: Plume, 1989), 22.
• Hamlet , ed. Harold Bloom. (Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2004), 1.4.5. References are to act, scene, and line.

Bibliography:

Hwang, David Henry. M Butterfly . New York: Plume, 1989.

         Hamlet . Edited by Harold Bloom. Major Literary Characters, 1st ser. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2004.

Updated July 10, 2022.

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• Spartanburg Community College Library
• SCC Research Guides
• Citing a Play

When you refer to lines from a play in-text, you need to cite these lines according to MLA. There are several ways to do in-text citations for plays. Depending on what information you have about your play will determine how you do your citations.

• Citing a Play (MLA Works Cited)
• In-Text Citations for Plays
• Help Resources

Citing a Play from Textbook

Format:  Author.  Title of Play in Italics .  Title of Textbook,  edited by Editor Name, edition, vol. #, Publisher, Year, Page Numbers.

Example:  Hansberry, Lorraine.  A Raisin in the Sun. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature , edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Valerie Smith, 3rd ed. vol. 2, W.W. Norton and Company, 2014, pp. 470-532.

Citing a Play in a Book 

*Note:  this citation should be used if you find your play in a book where the play is the entire book

Format:  Author.  Title of Play in Italics.  Edition, Publisher, Year. Database Name in Italics (if electronic), URL.

Example:  Sophocles.  Antigone.  Translated by David Mulroy,   University of Wisconsin Press, 2013.  ProQuest Ebook Central,  ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sccsc/detail.action?docID=3445283.

How you cite in-text depends on whether you are using line numbers or page numbers. 

Using Line Numbers

Example:  (Hansberry, 4.5. lines 171-9)

*Note:  If the text of your play includes line numbers on the side of the page, then replace the page number with the act, scene, and line numbers.

*Notes:  Once you establish you are using line numbers for your in-text citations, you no longer need to use the word "line" in your parenthetical citation.

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

Using Page Numbers

Example : (Wilson 200)

*Note:  If lines in your play are not numbered, you can use the page number in your citation.

• Sample Drama Paper
• Sample Drama Paper with Line Number Citations This sample drama paper will show examples of in-text citations using line numbers.
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How to Quote and Cite a Play in an Essay Using MLA Format

MLA style provides guidelines for citing both small and large passages of plays in the body of your text. In addition, MLA requires you to note any plays you reference on a separate works cited list. How you include quotes from a play in your text will depend on how whether you're quoting a single character or dialogue between multiple characters.

Quoting a Play in Your Essay

Whenever you quote a play in your essay, MLA style requires you to include an in-text citation showing where the quote came from. For a play, this will include the abbreviated title of the play, and the section of the play in which the quote is found.

If you are quoting a single character's dialogue, or stage directions, in your paper, you can simply include the quote within quotation marks as part of your sentence.

If quoting a verse play, lines are separated by a slash /. Take the following from Shakepeare's "Measure for Measure":

In asking for his pardon, Claudio states "the miserable have no other medicine/But only hope" ( Measure , 3.1.2-3).

In the in-text citation, " Measure " show's the play's title, "3" is the act number, "1" the scene number, and "2-3" the lines on which the quote appears. Note that each item in the play's division is separated by periods. '},{'content':'If you're quoting a play that does not have scenes or lines, include the act, and note it as such, so it is not confused with a page number.

For example, Caryl Churchill's "Cloud 9" has no scenes, so you might cite it as follows:

Betty's anxiety is shown by her worry toward Tommy. "He's going to fall in. Make Martin make him move back" ( Cloud , act 2).

Quoting Dialogue From Multiple Characters

One of the features of plays is that multiple characters speak to each other in dramatic form. If you quote two characters speaking to each other this way in your paper, it is formatted as a block quote. Include a blank line between the body of your paper and the first line of your quote.

When dialogue switches characters, include a blank line between each character's lines. Each line in the block quote must be indented 1 inch from your the rest of your paper's text, and if a character's speech runs more than one line, each additional line is indented an additional 1/4-inch. The names of characters are written in full caps -- don't forget to include an in-text citation after the quote.

This quote is from Aristophanes's "The Birds":

PISTHETAIROS: I never saw so many birds! They make me nervous.

EUELPIDES: You said it. When they lift their wings you can't see where you're going. ("Birds", párodos)

Greek plays are divided into named subsections, such as episodes and strophes -- the name of each subsection should be included when citing a Greek play. In this case "párodos" is the choral section including the quote.

Including a Play on Your Works Cited List

In MLA style, an additional page is added after the last page of your paper to include all items that were cited in your essay.

When you quote or reference a play in your writing, you place a reference on this page to give the information of the book or anthology in which you found the play. Your reference will include the name of the author, the play title, the publication information, and the format in which it was found. MLA arranges this information in the following order:

Author Lastname, Firstname. Title of Play . Publication Location: Publisher, Year of Publication. Format.

For example:

Churchill, Caryl. Cloud 9 . New York: Theater Communications Group, 1985. Print.

If you are referencing a play that has been translated and/or edited, include the translator's and/or editor's name after the title of the play:

Pirandello, Luigi. Six Characters in Search of an Author . Trans. Edward Storer. Ed. Adam Frost. Mineola: Dover Publications, 1998. Print.

Plays in Anthologies

Plays will often be included in a multivolume work or anthology. If you are citing a specific play that is included in an anthology, the anthology name should be included in italics after the play title.

In addition, the pages the play appears on within the anthology should be included after the year of publication. Here's an example of an anthology citation:

Aristophanes. The Frogs . Four Comedies . Trans. and Ed. Dudley Fitts. New York: Harcourt, 1962. 69-156. Print.

Note that if the translator and editor are the same person, you list "Trans." first.

Plays Found Online

To include a play found online your reference list, you will replace the publisher information with the name and date of the Web page on which you found the play. Also note the source format as "Web." You do not need a URL to cite a Web source in MLA, but you need to indicate the date you last accessed the Web page. Format your citation as follows:

Author Lastname, Firstname. Title of Play . Name of Web page . Name of website, last date Web page was updated. Web. Date you accessed Web page.

Here is an example:

Shakespeare, William. Measure for Measure . The Complete Works of William Shakespeare . Massachusetts Institute of Technology, n.d. Web. 16 March 2015.

Note that "n.d." means "no date." You can use this in place of the update date for a webpage, or publication date for a book, if no date is available.

Need help with a citation? Try our citation generator .

• Pellissippi State Community College Library: MLA Style Guide - Drama
• Purdue University Online Writing Lab: MLA Works Cited -- Electronic Sources

Jon Zamboni began writing professionally in 2010. He has previously written for The Spiritual Herald, an urban health care and religious issues newspaper based in New York City, and online music magazine eBurban. Zamboni has a Bachelor of Arts in religious studies from Wesleyan University.

How do I cite the script and performance of a play?

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 .

The script of a play and each performance of it are different works and should be cited separately. Apply the MLA format template to the work to create your works-cited-list entry.

Published Script 

  Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman . Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015.

Unpublished Script

Although the title of a published play is styled with italics, use quotation marks to indicate that a work is unpublished. You may use the optional-element slot at the end of the entry to provide supplemental information about the work:

Marino, Alex. “Ramona’s Umbrella.” 2015. Theatrical script.

Performance

To cite a performance of the same work, start with the title and then follow the template of core elements to list the other contributors (author, director, performers), the publisher (the production company), the date of the performance, and the location of the performance:

“Ramona’s Umbrella.” By Alex Marino, directed by Jeannine Overstreet, performance by Tania Milena, Tiny Plays Production Company, 15 Aug. 2017, Second Street Theater, Sacramento, CA.

If you see the play on more than one date, you’re effectively seeing different versions of the work; thus, a new entry is required:

“Ramona’s Umbrella.” By Alex Marino, directed by Jeannine Overstreet, performance by Tania Milena, Tiny Plays Production Company, 17 Aug. 2017, Second Street Theater, Sacramento, CA.

References in the Text

If you refer to both the script and the performance in your writing, be sure to distinguish them in context. For example, you could write:

In the closing scene of “Ramona’s Umbrella,” Marino has Ramona confess to her boyfriend that she’s lost the umbrella (45). In the Tiny Plays production, Tania Milena delivers these lines in an anguished whisper.

For in-text references, cite the script by the author’s last name and cite the performance by the performance name, in accordance with the works-cited-list entries.

This principle applies to other types of works that appear in written form and also are performed, like screenplays and films as well as musical compositions and performances.

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Key Elements

• "Play Title" (in quotes)
• Book Title (italicized)
• Publication year
• Page number (p.) or page numbers (pp.)
• From database: D atabase (italicized) , permanent link
• Web site URL (no http) and date a ccessed

Play in a Collection or Anthology (p. 27)

Cite the playwright first, then the play title in quotes.  If you cite more than one play from the same collection, create a citation for each play.

Use the anthology format, but omit the editor.

Play as a Book (5.5.2)

Some long plays are published as a single book . Cite these like  a regular book. 

eBook (p. 48)

After the publication year, include the database in italics and then the permanent link to the book.

Live Performance

After the play title in italics, list the playwright, director, performance date, theater, location, and description.

Play on DVD (p. 24)

Begin with the film's title unless you cite the contribution of a particular individual. If so, start with the individual's name.

If citing individual contributors of the performance, start with that person's last name.

Streaming Play (p. 33)

After the publication year, list the database in italics and permanent link or the Web site title, Web site URL, and date accessed.

Shakespearean Play In-Text Citations (p. 121)

Abbreviate the title of a work if you cite it frequently in your paper.  Use the full title when first mentioned in your text with the abbreviation in parentheses, then use the a bbreviation in l ater  references to the title . Cite the line numbers.

ex. In All's Well That Ends Well (AWW), Helena believes she is the master of her own fate, saying "Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, / Which we ascribe to heaven" ( AWW , 1.1.199-200).

See the document below for commonly-used Shakespearean play abbreviations.

• Abbreviations for Shakespeare Plays
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• Last Updated: Feb 26, 2024 2:24 PM
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Table of Contents

Collaboration, information literacy, writing process, quoting plays and poetry in mla.

• © 2023 by Angela Eward-Mangione - Hillsborough Community College

The rules for quoting drama and/or poetry in Modern Language Association (MLA) Style differ from those for quoting the genre of prose. This article discusses rules for using MLA style to format quotes from drama and poetry. Consult the MLA Handbook to learn more.

Quoting Poetry

The MLA Handbook offers specific guidelines for quoting poetry.

In addition to the amount quoted and line breaks, other factors that matter include stanza breaks, and unusual layouts.

Special Issues: Stanza Breaks, Unusual Layouts

Stanza Breaks: Mark stanza breaks that occur in a quotation with two forward slashes, with a space before and after them ( / / ) (78).

William Carlos Williams depicts a vivid image in “The Red Wheelbarrow”: “so much depends / / upon / / a red wheel / / barrow / / glazed with rain / / water / / beside the white / / chickens” (“Williams”).

Unusual Layouts: If the layout of the lines in the original text is unusual, reproduce it as accurately as you can (79).

The English metaphysical John Donne uses indentation in some of his poems to create unusual layouts, as the first stanza of including “A Valediction: of Weeping” demonstrates:

Let me pour forth My tears before they face, whilst I stay here, For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear, And by this mintage they are something worth, For thus they be Pregnant of thee; Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more, When a tear falls, that thou falls which it bore, So thou and I are nothing then, when on a divers shore. (lines 1-9)

Quoting Plays

When you must quote dialogue from a play, adhere to these rules:

• Set the quotation off from your text.
• Indent each name half an inch from the left margin and write it in all capital letters.
• Follow the name with a period and then start the quotation.
• Indent all other lines in the character’s speech an additional amount.
• When the dialogue shifts to another character, start a new line indented half an inch.
• Maintain this pattern throughout the quotation (80).

Example: One of the flashbacks in Margaret Edson’s Wit suggests Vivian Bearing’s illness causes her to question some of her previous interactions with students:

STUDENT 1. Professor Bearing? Can I talk to you for a minute?

VIVIAN: You may.

STUDENT 1: I need to ask for an extension on my paper. I’m really sorry, and I know your policy, but see—

VIVIAN: Don’t tell me. Your grandmother died.

STUDENT 1: You knew.

VIVIAN: It was a guess.

STUDENT 1: I have to go home.

VIVIAN: Do what you will, but the paper is due when it is due. (63)

Special Issues

Omissions: Follow the rules for omissions in quotations of prose (83).

Although some of the rules for quoting plays and poetry in MLA differ than those for quoting prose, understanding the guidelines will help you apply them in any scenario.

Donne, John. “The Bait.” The Complete English Poems . Penguin Books, 1971, pp. 43-4.

—. “The Break of Day.” The Complete English Poems . Penguin Books, 1971, pp. 45-6. Edson, Margaret. Wit. Faber and Faber, 1993.

Shakespeare, William. Sonnet 39. The Pelican Shakespeare: The Sonnets . Penguin Books, 1970, p. 59.

Williams, William Carlos: “The Red Wheelbarrow.” Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/core-poems/detail/45502 .

Yeats, William. “A Prayer for My Daughter.” The Collected Poems . Ed. Richard Finneran. Scribner, 1983, pp. 188-190.

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How To Cite A Play In MLA – Formatting & Examples

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In academic writing , proper citation practices are essential to acknowledge the intellectual contributions of authors and to uphold the integrity of scholarly discourse. For scholars, students, and writers engaged in the study of drama and theater, understanding how to cite a play in MLA format is important. This guide delves into the intricacies of citing plays in MLA, providing a step-by-step elucidation of the citation process for various play types, including classic and contemporary works.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• 1 How to cite a play in MLA – In a Nutshell
• 2 Definition: How to cite a play in MLA
• 3 How to cite a play in MLA: In-text citations
• 4 How to cite a play in MLA: Works Cited list

How to cite a play in MLA – In a Nutshell

• When quoting from a play in an essay, MLA style requires you to add an in-text citation indicating the source.
• Including quotes from a play in your work will vary based on whether you are quoting a single character or dialogue between numerous characters.
• In MLA format, an additional page is inserted after the last page of the academic essay to list all sources acknowledged within.

Definition: How to cite a play in MLA

An MLA parenthetical citation for a play with numbered lines should include the play’s title, author, act number, scene number, and line numbers. Without line numbers, refer to the page the text appears on. Capitalize, punctuate, and indent dialogue as necessary.

• Banquo: I’ll have it done.
• Macduff: What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won. (Shakespeare 1.2.94–95)

How to cite a play in MLA: In-text citations

An MLA in-text citation includes the author’s last name and page number:

• (Beckett 8)

Replace the page number with the act, scene, and line numbers, separated by periods if they’re included in the play:

• (Shakespeare 1.3.188–90)

If the text only employs lines, clarify what the numbers represent by including “lines” before the author’s name or title in the first citation of that piece. Subsequent references to the same play may omit “lines.”

• (Malcolm, lines 15–26)
• (Malcolm 35–40)

Multiple plays by the same author

In articles focusing on many works by a single playwright, italicize the play title instead of the writer’s name in each reference.

• ( Macbeth 1.3.188–90)

The MLA style manual suggests using abbreviations after the initial reference to avoid repeating play titles throughout your dissertation . If your study is on Shakespeare, you can utilize commonly accepted acronyms for play titles.

• ( Mac . 2.1.25)

Quoting dialogue

When quoting several dialogue lines from a play or film:

• Place the quotation on a new line with a half-inch left margin indent.
• The discourse should begin with the character’s name in capital letters and a period.
• If a character’s discourse extends beyond one line, indent the subsequent lines by a half inch.
• Add the citation following the punctuation mark.

How to cite a play in MLA: Works Cited list

The Works Cited section contains the citation information used in the text. The citation format depends on whether it was published as a book, an anthology, or a live performance.

If the play is published as a book, the citation format is identical to the standard MLA format.

Collection or anthology

Put a period after the play’s title if published in a collection or anthology, and then give the complete details of the sourcebook.

If there is no editor listed, simply remove this section and proceed as illustrated above.

Live performance

To reference a live performance of a play, provide the date and location of the performance. Include the theater company as well.

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How to cite a play in MLA with a one-act play?

MLA style ensures that your reader knows the play being cited. Italicize the work’s title with the page number or scene, act , and lines and only use the full title in the initial citation.

How to cite a play in MLA with no author?

Use a shortened version of the work’s title when a source’s author is unknown. If the work is short, enclose the title in quotation marks ; if longer, italicize the title and include the page number.

How to cite a play in MLA with multiple lines

Quotes longer than four prose lines or three verse lines should be placed in a separate block of text without quotation marks. Begin the quotation on a new line, double-spacing throughout and indenting it by 1/2 inch from the left margin.

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Citation guides

All you need to know about citations

How to cite a play in APA

To cite a play in a reference entry in APA style 6th edition include the following elements:

• Author(s) of the play: Give the last name and initials (e. g. Watson, J. D.) of up to seven authors with the last name preceded by an ampersand (&). For eight or more authors include the first six names followed by an ellipsis (…) and add the last author's name.
• Year of publication: Give the year in brackets followed by a full stop.
• Title of the play: Only the first letter of the first word and proper nouns are capitalized.
• Place of publication: List the city and the US state using the two-letter abbreviation. Spell out country names if outside of the UK or the USA.
• Publisher: Give the name of the publisher but omit terms, such as Publishers, Co., and Inc. Retain the words Books and Press.

Here is the basic format for a reference list entry of a play in APA style 6th edition:

Author(s) of the play . ( Year of publication ). Title of the play . Place of publication : Publisher .

To cite a play in a reference entry in APA style 7th edition include the following elements:

• Author(s) of the play: Give the last name and initials (e. g. Watson, J. D.) of up to 20 authors with the last name preceded by an ampersand (&). For 21 or more authors include the first 19 names followed by an ellipsis (…) and add the last author's name.

Here is the basic format for a reference list entry of a play in APA style 7th edition:

Author(s) of the play . ( Year of publication ). Title of the play . Publisher .

APA reference list examples

Take a look at our reference list examples that demonstrate the APA style guidelines for a play citation in action:

A play with one author

Williams, T . ( 2009 ). Cat on a hot tin roof . London, England : Penguin Classics .

Williams, T . ( 2009 ). Cat on a hot tin roof . Penguin Classics .

A play with two authors

Manoussi, J., & Timmory, G . ( 1902 ). Un beau marriage . Paris, France : Librairie Théâtrale .

A book with two authors

Manoussi, J., & Timmory, G . ( 1902 ). Un beau marriage . Librairie Théâtrale .

APA in-text citations

APA-style in-text citations for plays follow the standard author-date format used for other mediums like books.

In practice, using one of the examples of plays from above, an in-text citation will look like this:

Similar to his other works, Cat on a hot tin roof explores the theme of the broken man (Williams, 2009) .

When citing plays, you can expand on the in-text citation by adding the act, scene, and line number at the end of the citation. Take a look at this example:

In-text citation of a play including act, scene and line numbers

This passage of Hamlet is essential to establishing the resolve in Gertrude's character (Shakespeare, trans. 1992, 1.2.70-72 ).

This citation style guide is based on the official Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association ( 6 th edition).

More useful guides

• APA citation guide on plays
• Santa Monica College APA guide for theatre arts

More great BibGuru guides

• Harvard: how to cite a film
• Chicago: how to cite an annual report
• AMA: how to cite a Khan academy video

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• Knowledge Base
• How to cite Shakespeare in MLA

How to Cite Shakespeare in MLA | Format & Examples

Published on January 22, 2021 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on March 5, 2024.

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.

Scribbr’s free MLA Citation Generator can help you quickly and easily create accurate citations.

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Table of contents

Citing a play from a collection, citing multiple shakespeare plays, quoting shakespeare in mla, frequently asked questions about mla citations.

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.

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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.

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:

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.

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).

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If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Caulfield, J. (2024, March 05). How to Cite Shakespeare in MLA | Format & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved April 2, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/mla/shakespeare-citation/

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Harvard Referencing - Doncaster

• Citing One Author
• Cting two authors
• Citing three or more authors
• Citing Mulltiple sources
• Books with 1 author
• Books with 2 authors
• Books with 3 or more authors
• Books with editors
• Ebooks & online pamplets/booklets
• Acts of Parliament
• British Standards
• Journal Articles
• Electronic Journal Articles
• Ebooks & online pamphlets/booklets
• Online Video Recordings
• Online Images Charts and Tables
• Resources hosted on a VLE such as Canvas
• Dance Performances
• Plays and Theatrical Performances
• Television & Off air Recordings
• Original Art
• TV Advertisement
• Video Games
• Corporate Authors
• Using quotes - omitting part of a quote
• Secondary References
• Muliple Citations
• Missing Information
• Reference List or Bibilography
• Sample Bibilography

Example of citation within the text - Paraphrasing

The West End is full of musicals that are essentially just strings of hits loosely connected by unconvincing scripts  (Mamma Mia, 2004, Viva Forever , 2013 ) .

The Shakespearean stage has not seen such a raucous adaptation since the Sixteenth Century ( Twelfth Night , 2013).

Example of how the reference for this source should appear: Mamma Mia  (2004) by Catherine Johnson. Directed by Phyllida Lloyd [Price of Wales Theatre, London. 15 December]

Viva Forever   (2013) by Jennifer Saunders. Directed by Paul Garrington [Picadilly Theatre, London. 3 Februrary].

Twelfth Night   (2013) by Filter.  Directed by Sean Holmes. [Cast Theatre, Doncaster. 18 October].

Plays & Theatrical Performances - points to note

The following format should be used when referencing Plays & Theatrical Peformances.

Title of performance (Year performed) by playwright. Directed by Forename Surname [Venue, City of performance. Date of performance.]

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Citing a Play

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• Select style:
• Archive material
• Chapter of an edited book
• Conference proceedings
• Dictionary entry
• Dissertation
• DVD, video, or film
• E-book or PDF
• Edited book
• Encyclopedia article
• Government publication
• Music or recording
• Online image or video
• Presentation
• Press release
• Religious text

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.

LSBU Harvard Referencing: Play (recent edition)

• Act of Parliament
• Artwork on location
• Bill (House of Commons)
• Bill (House of Lords)
• Bloomberg data
• Book (edited book)
• Book (print book)
• British National Formulary (BNF) (print)
• British National Formulary (BNF) (online)
• British Standard
• Chapter in an edited book
• Command papers
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• Conference proceedings (print)
• Confidential information
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• Concerts (Band)
• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Artificial Intelligence
• Dance (live)
• Dictionary or reference book (online)
• Dictionary or reference book (print)
• Discussion List
• Dissertation (online)
• Dissertation (print)
• Edited book
• Exhibition on location
• Film (streamed)
• Financial report
• Films on DVD/Blu Ray
• Films (reissued)
• Government Bill
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• Green (consultation) paper
• Hansard (historical)
• Image found within a book/journal article/website
• Image (online)
• International Government documents
• Journal article (online)
• Journal article (print)
• Kindle e-book
• Lecture materials
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• Letter (from an online archive or collection)
• Letter (in an archive or collection)
• Lyrics from songs or hymns
• Magazine article (online)
• Magazine article (print)
• Manuscript (collection)
• Manuscript/Archival source (individual, named author)
• Manuscript/Archival source (individual, no author)
• Map (from an archive)
• Map (from Digimap)
• Map (Google Maps)
• Map (print)
• Market Research report
• Newspaper article (online)
• Newspaper article (print)
• NICE guidelines
• Online image
• Online video
• Music or Spoken Word Recordings on audio CDs or vinyl
• Music - Tracks on a CD or vinyl album
• Music - whole albums
• Musical Scores (Sheet Music)
• Pamphlet (from an online archive)
• Parliamentary debate
• Parliamentary debate (historical)
• Photograph (in an archive)
• Play (live)

Play (print)

• Play (recent edition)
• Play (translated)

Programme (for a play)

• Radio programme
• Radio programme (Box of Broadcasts)
• Report (online)
• Report (print)
• Radio Programmes heard on the internet
• Social media
• Systematic review
• Thesis (online)
• Thesis (print)
• Translated works
• TV programme
• TV programme (Box of Broadcasts)
• TV programme (streamed)
• Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) materials
• White (policy statement) paper
• YouTube video
• Secondary referencing
• Reference List/Bibliography
• Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
• General guidelines for referencing online resources
• General style guidelines
• Missing information
• Punctuation in referencing
• Referencing your own non-published work
• Sources with approximate publication dates
• Referencing preprints
• Referencing software

Best Practice tips

Referencing other play formats

Translated play

In-text citations

• Citing the tite of a book, play or production in the text
• Citing Verse Play Texts
• Citing Prose Play Texts

Format of the reference

If it is a more recent edition of a play (as most Shakespeare plays are, for example), you need to include the bibliographical details for that edition.

You will need:

• Name of the author(s)
• Year of edition
• Title of the book
• Name of the editor/s
• Place of publication

Author’s Surname, Initials. (Year of edition) Title of the play . Edited by Editor’s Surname, Initials. Place of publication: Publisher.

Shakespeare, W. (1984) Othello . Edited by Sanders, N. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.

In-text citation: (Shakespeare, 1984)

Play reference

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LSBU Harvard Referencing Quick Guide

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

MLA Formatting and Style Guide

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

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.

MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities. This resource, updated to reflect the MLA Handbook (9 th ed.), offers examples for the general format of MLA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the Works Cited page.

The following overview should help you better understand how to cite sources using MLA  9 th edition, including how to format the Works Cited page and in-text citations.

Please use the example at the bottom of this page to cite the Purdue OWL in MLA. See also our MLA vidcast series on the Purdue OWL YouTube Channel .

Creating a Works Cited list using the ninth edition

MLA is a style of documentation that may be applied to many different types of writing. Since texts have become increasingly digital, and the same document may often be found in several different sources, following a set of rigid rules no longer suffices.

Thus, the current system is based on a few guiding principles, rather than an extensive list of specific rules. While the handbook still describes how to cite sources, it is organized according to the process of documentation, rather than by the sources themselves. This gives writers a flexible method that is near-universally applicable.

Once you are familiar with the method, you can use it to document any type of source, for any type of paper, in any field.

Here is an overview of the process:

When deciding how to cite your source, start by consulting the list of core elements. These are the general pieces of information that MLA suggests including in each Works Cited entry. In your citation, the elements should be listed in the following order:

• Title of source.
• Title of container,
• Other contributors,
• Publication date,

Each element should be followed by the corresponding punctuation mark shown above. Earlier editions of the handbook included the place of publication and required different punctuation (such as journal editions in parentheses and colons after issue numbers) depending on the type of source. In the current version, punctuation is simpler (only commas and periods separate the elements), and information about the source is kept to the basics.

Begin the entry with the author’s last name, followed by a comma and the rest of the name, as presented in the work. End this element with a period.

Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.

Title of source

The title of the source should follow the author’s name. Depending upon the type of source, it should be listed in italics or quotation marks.

A book should be in italics:

Henley, Patricia. The Hummingbird House . MacMurray, 1999.

An individual webpage should be in quotation marks. The name of the parent website, which MLA treats as a "container," should follow in italics:

Lundman, Susan. "How to Make Vegetarian Chili." eHow, www.ehow.com/how_10727_make-vegetarian-chili.html.*

A periodical (journal, magazine, newspaper) article should be in quotation marks:

Bagchi, Alaknanda. "Conflicting Nationalisms: The Voice of the Subaltern in Mahasweta Devi's Bashai Tudu." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature , vol. 15, no. 1, 1996, pp. 41-50.

A song or piece of music on an album should be in quotation marks. The name of the album should then follow in italics:

Beyoncé. "Pray You Catch Me." Lemonade, Parkwood Entertainment, 2016, www.beyonce.com/album/lemonade-visual-album/.

*The MLA handbook recommends including URLs when citing online sources. For more information, see the “Optional Elements” section below.

Title of container

The eighth edition of the MLA handbook introduced what are referred to as "containers," which are the larger wholes in which the source is located. For example, if you want to cite a poem that is listed in a collection of poems, the individual poem is the source, while the larger collection is the container. The title of the container is usually italicized and followed by a comma, since the information that follows next describes the container.

Kincaid, Jamaica. "Girl." The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories, edited by Tobias Wolff, Vintage, 1994, pp. 306-07.

The container may also be a television series, which is made up of episodes.

“94 Meetings.” Parks and Recreation, created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, performance by Amy Poehler, season 2, episode 21, Deedle-Dee Productions and Universal Media Studios, 2010.

The container may also be a website, which contains articles, postings, and other works.

Wise, DeWanda. “Why TV Shows Make Me Feel Less Alone.”  NAMI,  31 May 2019,  www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/May-2019/How-TV-Shows-Make-Me-Feel-Less-Alone . Accessed 3 June 2019.

In some cases, a container might be within a larger container. You might have read a book of short stories on Google Books , or watched a television series on Netflix . You might have found the electronic version of a journal on JSTOR. It is important to cite these containers within containers so that your readers can find the exact source that you used.

“94 Meetings.” Parks and Recreation , season 2, episode 21, NBC , 29 Apr. 2010. Netflix, www.netflix.com/watch/70152031?trackId=200256157&tctx=0%2C20%2C0974d361-27cd-44de-9c2a-2d9d868b9f64-12120962.

Langhamer, Claire. “Love and Courtship in Mid-Twentieth-Century England.” Historical Journal , vol. 50, no. 1, 2007, pp. 173-96. ProQuest, doi:10.1017/S0018246X06005966. Accessed 27 May 2009.

Other contributors

In addition to the author, there may be other contributors to the source who should be credited, such as editors, illustrators, translators, etc. If their contributions are relevant to your research, or necessary to identify the source, include their names in your documentation.

Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Translated by Richard Howard , Vintage-Random House, 1988.

Woolf, Virginia. Jacob’s Room . Annotated and with an introduction by Vara Neverow, Harcourt, Inc., 2008.

If a source is listed as an edition or version of a work, include it in your citation.

The Bible . Authorized King James Version, Oxford UP, 1998.

Crowley, Sharon, and Debra Hawhee. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. 3rd ed., Pearson, 2004.

If a source is part of a numbered sequence, such as a multi-volume book or journal with both volume and issue numbers, those numbers must be listed in your citation.

Dolby, Nadine. “Research in Youth Culture and Policy: Current Conditions and Future Directions.” Social Work and Society: The International Online-Only Journal, vol. 6, no. 2, 2008, www.socwork.net/sws/article/view/60/362. Accessed 20 May 2009.

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria. Translated by H. E. Butler, vol. 2, Loeb-Harvard UP, 1980.

The publisher produces or distributes the source to the public. If there is more than one publisher, and they are all are relevant to your research, list them in your citation, separated by a forward slash (/).

Klee, Paul. Twittering Machine. 1922. Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Artchive, www.artchive.com/artchive/K/klee/twittering_machine.jpg.html. Accessed May 2006.

Women's Health: Problems of the Digestive System . American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 2006.

Daniels, Greg and Michael Schur, creators. Parks and Recreation . Deedle-Dee Productions and Universal Media Studios, 2015.

Note : The publisher’s name need not be included in the following sources: periodicals, works published by their author or editor, websites whose titles are the same name as their publisher, websites that make works available but do not actually publish them (such as  YouTube ,  WordPress , or  JSTOR ).

Publication date

The same source may have been published on more than one date, such as an online version of an original source. For example, a television series might have aired on a broadcast network on one date, but released on  Netflix  on a different date. When the source has more than one date, it is sufficient to use the date that is most relevant to your writing. If you’re unsure about which date to use, go with the date of the source’s original publication.

In the following example, Mutant Enemy is the primary production company, and “Hush” was released in 1999. Below is a general citation for this television episode:

“Hush.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer , created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, season 4, Mutant Enemy, 1999 .

However, if you are discussing, for example, the historical context in which the episode originally aired, you should cite the full date. Because you are specifying the date of airing, you would then use WB Television Network (rather than Mutant Enemy), because it was the network (rather than the production company) that aired the episode on the date you’re citing.

“Hush.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon, performance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, season 4, episode 10, WB Television Network, 14 Dec. 1999 .

You should be as specific as possible in identifying a work’s location.

An essay in a book or an article in a journal should include page numbers.

Adiche, Chimamanda Ngozi. “On Monday of Last Week.” The Thing around Your Neck, Alfred A. Knopf, 2009, pp. 74-94 .

The location of an online work should include a URL.  Remove any "http://" or "https://" tag from the beginning of the URL.

Wheelis, Mark. "Investigating Disease Outbreaks Under a Protocol to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention." Emerging Infectious Diseases , vol. 6, no. 6, 2000, pp. 595-600, wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/6/6/00-0607_article. Accessed 8 Feb. 2009.

When citing a physical object that you experienced firsthand, identify the place of location.

Matisse, Henri. The Swimming Pool. 1952, Museum of Modern Art, New York .

Optional elements

The ninth edition is designed to be as streamlined as possible. The author should include any information that helps readers easily identify the source, without including unnecessary information that may be distracting. The following is a list of optional elements that can be included in a documented source at the writer’s discretion.

Date of original publication:

If a source has been published on more than one date, the writer may want to include both dates if it will provide the reader with necessary or helpful information.

Erdrich, Louise. Love Medicine. 1984. Perennial-Harper, 1993.

City of publication:

The seventh edition handbook required the city in which a publisher is located, but the eighth edition states that this is only necessary in particular instances, such as in a work published before 1900. Since pre-1900 works were usually associated with the city in which they were published, your documentation may substitute the city name for the publisher’s name.

Thoreau, Henry David. Excursions . Boston, 1863.

Date of access:

When you cite an online source, the MLA Handbook recommends including a date of access on which you accessed the material, since an online work may change or move at any time.

Bernstein, Mark. "10 Tips on Writing the Living Web." A List Apart: For People Who Make Websites, 16 Aug. 2002, alistapart.com/article/writeliving. Accessed 4 May 2009.

As mentioned above, while the MLA handbook recommends including URLs when you cite online sources, you should always check with your instructor or editor and include URLs at their discretion.

A DOI, or digital object identifier, is a series of digits and letters that leads to the location of an online source. Articles in journals are often assigned DOIs to ensure that the source is locatable, even if the URL changes. If your source is listed with a DOI, use that instead of a URL.

Alonso, Alvaro, and Julio A. Camargo. "Toxicity of Nitrite to Three Species of Freshwater Invertebrates." Environmental Toxicology , vol. 21, no. 1, 3 Feb. 2006, pp. 90-94. Wiley Online Library, doi: 10.1002/tox.20155.

Creating in-text citations using the previous (eighth) edition

Although the MLA handbook is currently in its ninth edition, some information about citing in the text using the older (eighth) edition is being retained. The in-text citation is a brief reference within your text that indicates the source you consulted. It should properly attribute any ideas, paraphrases, or direct quotations to your source, and should direct readers to the entry in the Works Cited list. For the most part, an in-text citation is the  author’s name and the page number (or just the page number, if the author is named in the sentence) in parentheses :

When creating in-text citations for media that has a runtime, such as a movie or podcast, include the range of hours, minutes and seconds you plan to reference. For example: (00:02:15-00:02:35).

Again, your goal is to attribute your source and provide a reference without interrupting your text. Your readers should be able to follow the flow of your argument without becoming distracted by extra information.

How to Cite the Purdue OWL in MLA

Entire Website

The Purdue OWL . Purdue U Writing Lab, 2019.

Individual Resources

Contributors' names. "Title of Resource." The Purdue OWL , Purdue U Writing Lab, Last edited date.

The new OWL no longer lists most pages' authors or publication dates. Thus, in most cases, citations will begin with the title of the resource, rather than the developer's name.

"MLA Formatting and Style Guide." The Purdue OWL, Purdue U Writing Lab. Accessed 18 Jun. 2018.

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• A-Z of Harvard references
• Citing authors with Harvard
• Page numbers and punctuation
• References with missing details
• Secondary referencing
• Example reference list
• Journal article
• Magazine article
• Newspaper article
• Online video
• Radio and internet radio
• Television advertisement
• Television programme
• Ancient text
• Bibliography
• Book (printed, one author or editor)
• Book (printed, multiple authors or editors)
• Book (printed, with no author)
• Chapter in a book (print)
• Collected works
• Dictionaries and Encyclopedia entries
• Multivolume work
• Religious text
• Thesis or dissertation
• Translated work
• Census data
• Financial report
• Mathematical equation
• Scientific dataset
• Book illustration, Figure or Diagram
• Inscription on a building
• Installation
• Painting or Drawing
• Interview (on the internet)
• Interview (newspaper)
• Interview (radio or television)
• Interview (as part of research)
• Act of the UK parliament (statute)
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• Birth/Death/Marriage certificate
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• Government/Official publication
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• Legislation from UK devolved assemblies
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• Play (live performance)
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• Working paper
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To be made up of:

• Year of publication (in round brackets).
• Title (in italics).
• Edition information.
• Place of publication: publisher.
• Act. Scene: line.

In-text citation:

(Shakespeare, 1998, 1.2:177)

Reference list:

Shakespeare, W. (1998).  Hamlet.  Edited by Kevin Bryant. London: Penguin. 1.2:177.

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• Referencing

A Quick Guide to Harvard Referencing | Citation Examples

Published on 14 February 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on 15 September 2023.

Referencing is an important part of academic writing. It tells your readers what sources you’ve used and how to find them.

Harvard is the most common referencing style used in UK universities. In Harvard style, the author and year are cited in-text, and full details of the source are given in a reference list .

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Table of contents

Harvard in-text citation, creating a harvard reference list, harvard referencing examples, referencing sources with no author or date, frequently asked questions about harvard referencing.

A Harvard in-text citation appears in brackets beside any quotation or paraphrase of a source. It gives the last name of the author(s) and the year of publication, as well as a page number or range locating the passage referenced, if applicable:

Note that ‘p.’ is used for a single page, ‘pp.’ for multiple pages (e.g. ‘pp. 1–5’).

An in-text citation usually appears immediately after the quotation or paraphrase in question. It may also appear at the end of the relevant sentence, as long as it’s clear what it refers to.

When your sentence already mentions the name of the author, it should not be repeated in the citation:

Sources with multiple authors

When you cite a source with up to three authors, cite all authors’ names. For four or more authors, list only the first name, followed by ‘ et al. ’:

Sources with no page numbers

Some sources, such as websites , often don’t have page numbers. If the source is a short text, you can simply leave out the page number. With longer sources, you can use an alternate locator such as a subheading or paragraph number if you need to specify where to find the quote:

Multiple citations at the same point

When you need multiple citations to appear at the same point in your text – for example, when you refer to several sources with one phrase – you can present them in the same set of brackets, separated by semicolons. List them in order of publication date:

Multiple sources with the same author and date

If you cite multiple sources by the same author which were published in the same year, it’s important to distinguish between them in your citations. To do this, insert an ‘a’ after the year in the first one you reference, a ‘b’ in the second, and so on:

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A bibliography or reference list appears at the end of your text. It lists all your sources in alphabetical order by the author’s last name, giving complete information so that the reader can look them up if necessary.

The reference entry starts with the author’s last name followed by initial(s). Only the first word of the title is capitalised (as well as any proper nouns).

Sources with multiple authors in the reference list

As with in-text citations, up to three authors should be listed; when there are four or more, list only the first author followed by ‘ et al. ’:

Reference list entries vary according to source type, since different information is relevant for different sources. Formats and examples for the most commonly used source types are given below.

• Entire book
• Book chapter
• Translated book
• Edition of a book

Journal articles

• Print journal
• Online-only journal with DOI
• Online-only journal with no DOI
• General web page
• Online article or blog
• Social media post

Sometimes you won’t have all the information you need for a reference. This section covers what to do when a source lacks a publication date or named author.

No publication date

When a source doesn’t have a clear publication date – for example, a constantly updated reference source like Wikipedia or an obscure historical document which can’t be accurately dated – you can replace it with the words ‘no date’:

Note that when you do this with an online source, you should still include an access date, as in the example.

When a source lacks a clearly identified author, there’s often an appropriate corporate source – the organisation responsible for the source – whom you can credit as author instead, as in the Google and Wikipedia examples above.

When that’s not the case, you can just replace it with the title of the source in both the in-text citation and the reference list:

Harvard referencing uses an author–date system. Sources are cited by the author’s last name and the publication year in brackets. Each Harvard in-text citation corresponds to an entry in the alphabetised reference list at the end of the paper.

Vancouver referencing uses a numerical system. Sources are cited by a number in parentheses or superscript. Each number corresponds to a full reference at the end of the paper.

A Harvard in-text citation should appear in brackets every time you quote, paraphrase, or refer to information from a source.

The citation can appear immediately after the quotation or paraphrase, or at the end of the sentence. If you’re quoting, place the citation outside of the quotation marks but before any other punctuation like a comma or full stop.

In Harvard referencing, up to three author names are included in an in-text citation or reference list entry. When there are four or more authors, include only the first, followed by ‘ et al. ’

Though the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, there is a difference in meaning:

• A reference list only includes sources cited in the text – every entry corresponds to an in-text citation .
• A bibliography also includes other sources which were consulted during the research but not cited.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

Caulfield, J. (2023, September 15). A Quick Guide to Harvard Referencing | Citation Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 2 April 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/referencing/harvard-style/

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• Writing Tips

How to Cite a Play in MHRA Referencing

4-minute read

• 15th September 2021

If you are citing a play in your writing , you will need to know how to reference it correctly. In this post, we will demonstrate how to cite either a standalone play or a play from a collection using MHRA referencing.

Citing a Single Play in MHRA Referencing

In MHRA referencing, you cite sources in footnotes. To do this, you will need to add a superscript footnote number in the place where you are citing your source:

We see this in Shakespeare’s tragic romance about the Egyptian queen. 1

You will then need to provide source information in the accompanying footnote.

For the first citation of a single play (i.e. a play published as a standalone book or work), you should use the following format:

n. Playwright Name(s), Play Title , ed. by Editor Name(s) (Place of publication: Publisher, Year), Act. Scene. Line no. OR p. x.

The final part of the citation here is the specific part of the play you’re citing. How you note this in the citation will depend on how the play is formatted:

• For plays that are divided into acts and scenes, list the act numbers with small capital Roman numerals, and scene and line numbers with Arabic numerals.
• For plays without acts and scenes, or parts of a play that don’t use these divisions (e.g. an introduction before the script begins), use the abbreviations ‘p.’ or ‘pp.’ followed by the relevant page number or page range, respectively.

You can see how this would look in practice via the example below:

1. William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra , ed. by Emrys Jones (London: Penguin Books, 1977), V . 2. 180–189.

Here, for example, we’re citing act five, scene two, lines 180 to 189 of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra , with full bibliographic detail of the source provided.

Citing a Play from an Edited Collection

The footnote format for citing a play from a collection is slightly different:

n. Playwright Name(s), ‘Play Title’, in Collection Title , ed. by Editor Name(s) (Place of Publication: Publisher, Year), pp. X–X (Act. Scene. Line no. OR p. x).

The key here is that the play name is given in quotation marks, not italics, after which we give the publication details of the container volume.

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In addition, we include the page range for the full play after the publication details, and then a pinpoint citation is provided in parentheses afterwards.

In practice, then, the first citation for a play from a collection would look like this:

2. Henrik Ibsen, ‘An Enemy of the People’, in A Doll’s House and Other Plays , trans. by Deborah Dawkin and Erik Skuggevik, ed. by Tore Rem (London: Penguin Books, 2016), pp. 309–320 ( III . 21).

Here, for instance, we’re citing act three, line 21 from ‘An Enemy of the People’, which appears in A Doll’s House and Other Plays between pages 309 and 320.

Citing a Play More than Once

If you cite the same play more than once in your writing, you can use a shortened footnote citation for each citation after the first. Typically, this means using the author’s surname and a new pinpoint citation for the part of the text being cited. For instance, to cite the play above again we would write:

3. Shakespeare, IV . 4. 11–21. 4. Ibsen, II . 10–11.

If you are citing more than one play by the same author, though, you may need to use a shortened play title as well as or instead of the author’s surname in repeat citations. For more information, see our blog post on repeat citations in MHRA .

Adding a Play in an MHRA Bibliography

Every source you cite should also be added to your bibliography . The format here is largely the same as in the first footnote citation, except:

• The author’s surname and first name should be reversed. This ensures that sources are listed alphabetically by the author’s surname.
• You don’t need any pinpoint citations (e.g. page or line numbers).
• There are no full stops at the end of MHRA bibliography entries.
• Each entry should use a hanging indent for each line after the first.

For example, the plays above would be referenced accordingly:

Ibsen, Henrik, ‘An Enemy of the People’, in A Doll’s House and Other Plays , trans. by Deborah Dawkin and Erik Skuggevik, ed. by Tore Rem (London: Penguin Books, 2016), pp. 309–320

Shakespeare, William, Antony and Cleopatra , ed. by Emrys Jones (London: Penguin Books, 1977)

Hopefully, this has helped you understand how to cite plays using MHRA referencing. For more support, try our expert MHRA proofreading service !

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Five Winning Plays to Say It With Style

Hook people with diction, sensations, sound, repetition, and analogy..

Posted April 5, 2024 | Reviewed by Davia Sills

• To succeed with style, choose words with rich connotations and specifics evoking palpable sensations.
• Follow up by building repeating patterns into your writing, delivering one-two punches of sound and syntax.
• Craft analogies with metaphor and simile that come across as heartfelt features, not flimsy frills.

How often do you think, “I wish I could write or speak with style?” Who doesn’t want to come across as cool? Who doesn’t want to play their hand with flair?

But when you make your play, what amplifies your impact as a stylist is not appearing fashionable—it is stimulating in people a more intense neural engagement . That’s how you persuade people, get them to think outside their boxes, get them to act.

When you choose to play your style cards, you have dozens of tricks to choose from—tone, imagery, figures of speech, and more. Which ones rank on the shortlist for a surefire payoff?

There’s no scientific answer. But research shows that five basic elements prove their worth as measured by brain activity. All of them are easy to practice and amplify activity not only in the brain’s sensory, motor, and other circuits. They also fuel the brain’s reward circuit.

A caution: Before you try to score style points, work your message into fit form, trim and taut. After you’ve conditioned your body logic, you can build on it to intensify your lines of reasoning. If you drape style elements onto flabby logic, you’re likely to highlight your message’s ungainliness.

So, per my last post , beware of ornamenting your message with mere bling, which risks adding sparkle without substance. Craft instead those elements that prove their worth, as demonstrated by how they capture attention , pique emotions, and elicit insights.

1. Play With Words

The first winning style play is to replace plain words with vivid ones. If you’re like me, you’re almost always going to start by choosing the first clear word that comes to mind. That’s normal. But then ask yourself: Can I find a more exacting and unexpected word—or a mix of words—that expresses more pointedly what I want to say?

Selecting the right words has always been elemental to the masters of style. Here’s Charles Dickens as he describes a man on the street: “His neckerchief [was] like an eel, his complexion like dirty dough, his mangy fur cap pulled low upon his beetle brows…..” [i]

Less-than-common word combinations—neckerchief and eel, dirty and dough, beetle and brows—they form novel images, vivid, and exacting. They impart genuine style.

And why does that engage? Because readers and listeners continuously predict your next word and phrase.[ii] When you surprise them—with words or anything else—their brains pay extra attention, which can initiate the release of dopamine and natural opioids in the reward circuit.[iii]

The lesson: Once you know what you want to say, find more stylish words to improve how you want to say it.

2. Play With Sensations

Like Dickens, you can also reap the benefits of style by playing with sensations. Just now, you probably experienced some unique ones: the feel of eely slipperiness, the smell of doughy skin, and the sight of bristling beetles.

Which points to the second winning play: Choose words and phrases to activate sensory, motor, and visual neurons. The goal is to have what you say mentally processed in the same neural circuits as sensations in real life.

Here’s Rudyard Kipling: “…and the last puff of the day-wind brought from the unseen villages the scent of damp wood-smoke, hot cakes, dripping undergrowth, and rotting pine-cones. That is the true smell of the Himalayas….” [iv]

And here’s Western writer Zane Grey: “I observed then that the lizard had his jewel eyes upon the bee; he slipped to the edge of the stone, flicked out a long, red tongue, and tore the insect from its honeyed perch.” [v]

When you read Kipling and Grey, you reenact the actual sensory experiences—albeit subtly. This is a reminder when you’re composing to play to all five senses, not just the “picture” people have in their heads.

3. Play With Sound

A third winning style play is to convey meaning through sound. Some words convey meaning via onomatopoeia (click, bang, splash, boom).[vi] You use them all the time to just that effect. But many others convey meaning via sound in ways researchers don’t completely understand.

Ever notice how verbs and nouns for shiny things often begin with “gl”? Glisten, gleam, glint, glare, glimmer, glass, glitz, gloss, glitter. Somehow, the gl and other sounds you might once have called meaningless—l and r are other examples—have specific connotations.[vii]

In 2023, Bodo Winter at the University of Birmingham led a team that cataloged over 14,000 words whose sounds evoke meaning.[viii] Some may convey that meaning by eliciting emotion . For example, research shows people associate r with harsher emotions.[ix]

Here’s novelist Zora Neale Hurston at a cabaret: “This orchestra grows rambunctious, rears on its hind legs and attacks the tonal veil with primitive fury, rending it, clawing it until it breaks….” [x]

You, like Hurston, can take advantage of sound when you use your “ear” to write since you’ve learned the magic of sound since you were a kid.

Playing with recurring sounds is another way to add style—recurring consonants, syllables, and word endings. The ensuing drumbeat—in phrases, sentences, or within paragraphs—establishes a pleasing rhythm and makes the sentence easier to read. See my post on alliteration .

You don’t need the skills of a poet to take advantage of this. Here’s dermatologist Marty Lyman writing about skin: “The sun harms, but it also heals.” And: “We can feel defined and confined by our own skin…” [xi] The first sentence uses alliteration, the second, assonance.

Literary masters use alliteration all the time. Here’s F. Scott Fitzgerald as he ends The Great Gatsby : “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” [xii]

4. Play With Repetition

People also like recurrence when it comes to the repetition of words and syntax. Research shows that one sentence primes people to more quickly grasp a succeeding one with the same structure. The repetition allows people to read faster and with more pleasure.

Here’s writer Anne Lamott: “Seventh and eighth grade is about waiting to get picked for teams, waiting to get asked to dance, waiting to grow taller, waiting to grow breasts… More than anything else, they were about hurt and aloneness.” [xiii]

You probably found the recurrence of “waiting” pleasing. Notice how it also hints at Lamott’s meaning—the feeling of being repeatedly delayed.

And here’s Frederick Douglass in 1852: “For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder… The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed….” [xiv]

That syntactic repetition—prime and repeat—can have the power of a one-two punch. Abolitionist Douglass no doubt knew what he was doing.

5. Play With Analogy

The fifth winning style play is the use of analogy. Few style elements deepen meaning more. The most profound insights often come when someone compares a thought or thing we can’t quite grasp to another one that we do.

Metaphor gets the most credit for its analogy power. Here’s Virginia Woolf as she walks along a river: “On the further bank the willows wept in perpetual lamentation, their hair about their shoulders.” [xv]

Simile often works just as well. Here’s D.H. Lawrence: “Lemon trees, like Italians, seem to be happiest when they are touching one another all round.” [xvi]

And here’s the classic primer on negotiation, Getting to Yes: “Like two shipwrecked sailors in a lifeboat at sea quarreling over limited rations and supplies, negotiators may begin by seeing each other as adversaries.” [xvii]

Five basic elements of style. Five elements worth practicing to have more impact as a communicator. Just remember to craft them not just as fashion frills. Craft them to highlight the well-sculpted body of your meaning. Use your flair with words to showcase the fitness of your message, not to reveal your fixation on cool.

[i] Charles Dickens, The Uncommercial Traveller (1860).

[ii] Micha Heilbron et al., "A Hierarchy of Linguistic Predictions During Natural Language Comprehension," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 119, no. 32 (2021).

[iii] Andrew R Tapper and Susanna Molas, "Midbrain Circuits of Novelty Processing," Neurobiology of Learning and Memory 176 (2020).

[iv] Rudyard Kipling, In Black and White (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909).

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/62346/62346-h/62346-h.htm

[v] Zane Grey, The Last of the Plainsmen (Outing Publishing, 1908).

[vi] Arash Aryani, Markus Conrad, and Arthur M Jacobs, "Extracting Salient Sublexical Units from Written Texts: “Emophon,” a Corpus-Based Approach to Phonological Iconicity," Frontiers in Psychology 4 (2013).

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] Bodo Winter et al., "Iconicity Ratings for 14,000+ English Words," Behavior Research Methods (2023).

[ix] Aryani, Conrad, and Jacobs, "Extracting Salient Sublexical Units from Written Texts: “Emophon,” a Corpus-Based Approach to Phonological Iconicity."

[x] Zora Neale Hurston, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me,” May 1928, The World Tomorrow.

[xi] Marty Lyman, The Remarkable Life of the Skin (New York: Grove Press, 2019), 84, 158.

[xii] F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925).

[xiii] Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions (New York: Pantheon Book, 1993), 11.

[xiv] Frederick Douglass, ““What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” speech delivered July 5, 1852, Rochester, New York.

[xv] Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1929).

[xvi] D.H. Lawrence, Sea and Sardinia (New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1921).

[xvii] Roger Fisher and William Ury, Getting to Yes (New York: Penguin, 1983), 39.

Bill Birchard is a writer, writing coach, and book consultant. He writes about the neuroscience and psychology of writing. His most recent book is Writing for Impact: 8 Secrets from Science That Will Fire Up Your Reader’s Brains.

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Cole Brings Plenty, Actor on ‘Yellowstone’ Spinoff ‘1923,’ Found Dead

By Pat Saperstein

Pat Saperstein

Deputy Editor

• Cole Brings Plenty, Actor on ‘Yellowstone’ Spinoff ‘1923,’ Found Dead 9 hours ago
• Celebrities Aren’t the Only Ones Saving Historic Cinemas  2 days ago
• Kevin Smith Fights to Keep His Childhood Movie Theater Open With Famous Guests and a Proposed Reality Show, Because ‘Exhibition Is in the Toilet’ 2 days ago

Cole Brings Plenty , the actor who played Pete Plenty Clouds on “ Yellowstone ” spinoff series “ 1923 ,” was found dead in Kansas a week after he was reported missing. He was 27.

Plenty was a suspect in a domestic violence case. According to the Johnson County, Kan. sheriff’s office, he was discovered Friday morning in a wooded area after a person noticed an unoccupied vehicle nearby. “The investigation is ongoing,” the sheriff’s statement said, adding that the medical examiner and investigators were on the scene.

Cole Brings Plenty’s uncle Mo Brings Plenty, who stars in “Yellowstone,” had posted several appeals on Instagram while the search for his nephew was under way. On Thursday, he wrote, “We want to extend our heartfelt gratitude to everyone in the community who has contributed their time, resources and support in helping us search for the missing person.”

A statement on Tuesday from the Lawrence Police Department said Cole Brings Plenty was allegedly involved in a domestic violence dispute Sunday at an apartment in Lawrence. “Officers responded to reports of a female screaming for help, but the suspect fled before officers arrived,” it reads. “The investigation identified Brings Plenty and traffic cameras showed him leaving the city immediately after the incident, traveling southbound on 59 Highway.”

The statement said, “We’ve identified him as the suspect, have probable cause for his arrest, and issued an alert to area agencies.”

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Petty Steph Curry Trolls Rockets With 'The Warriors' Movie Reference on Bench

• Author: Tom Dierberger

Steph Curry leaped at the opportunity to humble 22-year-old forward Tari Eason and the Houston Rockets on Thursday night.

The Warriors, who were once on the brink of falling out of the NBA play-in tournament due to the Rockets' recent hot streak, handily defeated Houston 133–110 at the Toyota Center on Thursday.

In the game's closing moments, Curry watched from the bench with three water bottles sitting atop three of his fingers, referencing the famous scene from the classic 1979 movie The Warriors when Luther, the film's antagonist character, shouted, "Warriors ... come out to play!"

The Petty King is so back 😂💀 pic.twitter.com/60fGtCv8an — Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) April 5, 2024

Curry's fun moment on the bench undoubtedly was in response to Eason wearing a T-shirt to the game that depicted Luther's famous phrase from The Warriors . Eason also went viral in March for exclaiming, "Warriors, come out to play!" on Instagram when Houston was within a game of Golden State in the Western Conference standings.

The Rockets fell to 38–38 after Thursday's loss, falling four games back of the Warriors (42–34) for the final play-in tournament spot.

Eason, the No. 17 pick of the 2022 NBA draft, underwent season-ending leg surgery last month.

"That’s pretty lame," Warriors guard Klay Thompson said of Eason wearing the trolling T-shirt. "Especially if you’re not even playing. Like it's one thing if you're playing, you're out there competing. But you’re just gonna be trolling from the sideline.

"Bro, what are we doing?"

Houston is running out of time to snipe Golden State's play-in tournament spot. The Warriors, winners of six straight games, have six contests left in the regular season.

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Guest Essay

José Andrés: Let People Eat

By José Andrés

Mr. Andrés is the founder of World Central Kitchen.

In the worst conditions you can imagine — after hurricanes, earthquakes, bombs and gunfire — the best of humanity shows up. Not once or twice but always.

The seven people killed on a World Central Kitchen mission in Gaza on Monday were the best of humanity. They are not faceless or nameless. They are not generic aid workers or collateral damage in war.

Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, John Chapman, Jacob Flickinger, Zomi Frankcom, James Henderson, James Kirby and Damian Sobol risked everything for the most fundamentally human activity: to share our food with others.

These are people I served alongside in Ukraine, Turkey, Morocco, the Bahamas, Indonesia, Mexico, Gaza and Israel. They were far more than heroes.

Their work was based on the simple belief that food is a universal human right. It is not conditional on being good or bad, rich or poor, left or right. We do not ask what religion you belong to. We just ask how many meals you need.

From Day 1, we have fed Israelis as well as Palestinians. Across Israel, we have served more than 1.75 million hot meals. We have fed families displaced by Hezbollah rockets in the north. We have fed grieving families from the south. We delivered meals to the hospitals where hostages were reunited with their families. We have called consistently, repeatedly and passionately for the release of all the hostages.

All the while, we have communicated extensively with Israeli military and civilian officials. At the same time, we have worked closely with community leaders in Gaza, as well as Arab nations in the region. There is no way to bring a ship full of food to Gaza without doing so.

That’s how we served more than 43 million meals in Gaza, preparing hot food in 68 community kitchens where Palestinians are feeding Palestinians.

We know Israelis. Israelis, in their heart of hearts, know that food is not a weapon of war.

Israel is better than the way this war is being waged. It is better than blocking food and medicine to civilians. It is better than killing aid workers who had coordinated their movements with the Israel Defense Forces.

The Israeli government needs to open more land routes for food and medicine today. It needs to stop killing civilians and aid workers today. It needs to start the long journey to peace today.

In the worst conditions, after the worst terrorist attack in its history, it’s time for the best of Israel to show up. You cannot save the hostages by bombing every building in Gaza. You cannot win this war by starving an entire population.

We welcome the government’s promise of an investigation into how and why members of our World Central Kitchen family were killed. That investigation needs to start at the top, not just the bottom.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said of the Israeli killings of our team, “It happens in war.” It was a direct attack on clearly marked vehicles whose movements were known by the Israel Defense Forces.

It was also the direct result of a policy that squeezed humanitarian aid to desperate levels. Our team was en route from a delivery of almost 400 tons of aid by sea — our second shipment, funded by the United Arab Emirates, supported by Cyprus and with clearance from the Israel Defense Forces.

The team members put their lives at risk precisely because this food aid is so rare and desperately needed. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification global initiative, half the population of Gaza — 1.1. million people — faces the imminent risk of famine. The team would not have made the journey if there were enough food, traveling by truck across land, to feed the people of Gaza.

The peoples of the Mediterranean and Middle East, regardless of ethnicity and religion, share a culture that values food as a powerful statement of humanity and hospitality — of our shared hope for a better tomorrow.

There’s a reason, at this special time of year, Christians make Easter eggs, Muslims eat an egg at iftar dinners and an egg sits on the Seder plate. This symbol of life and hope reborn in spring extends across religions and cultures.

I have been a stranger at Seder dinners. I have heard the ancient Passover stories about being a stranger in the land of Egypt, the commandment to remember — with a feast before you — that the children of Israel were once slaves.

It is not a sign of weakness to feed strangers; it is a sign of strength. The people of Israel need to remember, at this darkest hour, what strength truly looks like.

José Andrés is a chef and the founder of World Central Kitchen.

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New $20 minimum wage for fast food workers in California is set to start Monday

Most fast-food workers in California will be paid at least $20 an hour when a new law kicks in Monday, giving more financial security to a low-paid profession while threatening to raise prices for consumers. (AP Video/Terry Chea)

An employee collects payment at an Auntie Anne’s and Cinnabon store in Livermore, Calif., Thursday, March 28, 2024. He’s among hundreds of thousands of California fast-food workers who will be paid at least $20 an hour starting Monday, April 1. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

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An employee makes pretzels at an Auntie Anne’s and Cinnabon store in Livermore, Calif., Thursday, March 28, 2024. She’s among hundreds of thousands of California fast-food workers who will be paid at least $20 an hour starting Monday, April 1. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Ingrid Vilorio, who works at a Jack in the Box restaurant, sits in her home in Hayward, Calif., Friday, March 22, 2024. She’s among hundreds of thousands of California fast-food workers who will be paid $20 an hour starting Monday, April 1. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Alex Johnson, who owns 10 Auntie Anne’s and Cinnabon stores in the San Francisco Bay area, stands in his store in Livermore, Calif., Thursday, March 28, 2024. He said his stores will have to raise prices to cover the increase in his employees’ wages to $20 an hour. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

LIVERMORE, Calif. (AP) — Most fast food workers in California will be paid at least $20 an hour beginning Monday when a new law is scheduled to kick in giving more financial security to an historically low-paying profession while threatening to raise prices in a state already known for its high cost of living.

Democrats in the state Legislature passed the law last year in part as an acknowledgement that many of the more than 500,000 people who work in fast food restaurants are not teenagers earning some spending money, but adults working to support their families.

That includes immigrants like Ingrid Vilorio, who said she started working at a McDonald’s shortly after arriving in the United States in 2019. Fast food was her full-time job until last year. Now, she works about eight hours per week at a Jack in the Box while working other jobs.

“The $20 raise is great. I wish this would have come sooner,” Vilorio said through a translator. “Because I would not have been looking for so many other jobs in different places.”

The law was supported by the trade association representing fast food franchise owners. But since it passed, many franchise owners have bemoaned the impact the law is having on them, especially during California’s slowing economy .

Alex Johnson owns 10 Auntie Anne’s Pretzels and Cinnabon restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area. He said sales have slowed in 2024, prompting him to lay off his office staff and rely on his parents to help with payroll and human resources.

Increasing his employees’ wages will cost Johnson about $470,000 each year. He will have to raise prices anywhere from 5% to 15% at his stores, and is no longer hiring or seeking to open new locations in California, he said.

“I try to do right by my employees. I pay them as much as I can. But this law is really hitting our operations hard,” Johnson said.

“I have to consider selling and even closing my business,” he said. “The profit margin has become too slim when you factor in all the other expenses that are also going up.”

Over the past decade, California has doubled its minimum wage for most workers to $16 per hour. A big concern over that time was whether the increase would cause some workers to lose their jobs as employers’ expenses increased.

Instead, data showed wages went up and employment did not fall, said Michael Reich, a labor economics professor at the University of California-Berkeley.

California Fast Food Wages-increase intro wrap

AP correspondent Julie Walker reports a new $20 minimum wage for California fast food workers starts Monday.

“I was surprised at how little, or how difficult it was to find disemployment effects. If anything, we find positive employment effects,” Reich said.

Plus, Reich said while the statewide minimum wage is $16 per hour, many of the state’s larger cities have their own minimum wage laws setting the rate higher than that. For many fast food restaurants, this means the jump to $20 per hour will be smaller.

The law reflected a carefully crafted compromise between the fast food industry and labor unions, which had been fighting over wages, benefits and legal liabilities for close to two years. The law originated during private negotiations between unions and the industry, including the unusual step of signing confidentiality agreements .

The law applies to restaurants offering limited or no table service and which are part of a national chain with at least 60 establishments nationwide. Restaurants operating inside a grocery establishment are exempt, as are restaurants producing and selling bread as a stand-alone menu item.

At first, it appeared the bread exemption applied to Panera Bread restaurants. Bloomberg News reported the change would benefit Greg Flynn, a wealthy campaign donor to Newsom. But the Newsom administration said the wage increase law does apply to Panera Bread because the restaurant does not make dough on-site. Also, Flynn has announced he would pay his workers at least $20 per hour .

Beam reported from Sacramento, California.