Sunday, July 29, 2007

While reading the articles for my research project and
for the class quizzes I have noticed that some scientists
that are noted are followed with an "et al."

In the Richardson, Dale and Kirkham article it notes a
scientist as follows: (Allopenna et al., 1998)

I was wondering if anyone knew what the "et al."
stood for.

Thanks
Posted by at

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the question! It's a good one. "Et al." stands for "and others". When authors cite a reference with multiple authors (3-5 authors), they list all of the authors' last names in the citation the first time it's cited. If it's cited again, then they only keep the first author's last name and add "et al." for every subsequent citation of that article.

Here's an example (from http://www.vanguard.edu/faculty/
ddegelman/index.aspx?doc_id=796)

Reviews of research on religion and health have concluded that at least some types of religious behaviors are related to higher levels of physical and mental health (Payne, Bergin, Bielema, & Jenkins, 1991).

Payne et al. (1991) showed that ...

For articles with 6 or more authors, then you use the first author's last name and et al. for ALL citations of the article, including the first citation.

Keep in mind that when writing your references section, you shouldn't use "et al." because you have to list all authors' names. You'll notice this if you check the references section of your proposal articles.

Hope that helps!

July 30, 2007 at 12:36 AM

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