Remarks

EMPTY: Many tag sets model the <etal> element as EMPTY, that is, the element has no content. Such an empty element is typically used as a place holder, for example, to generate the text “et al.” via a stylesheet. In this Tag Set, the element is typically used as an empty element, but the Tag Set also accommodates those tag sets that expect content inside <etal>, so the element is modeled with text content instead of as formally EMPTY and may contain text such as “Associates, co-workers, and colleagues”.

In Citations: The latest edition (6th) of the APA Style Guide uses “et al.” in a new way within a long list of authors. When there are more than 8 authors, the citation is expected to display the first 6 authors, then an ellipsis or the words “et al.”, followed by the last author, as shown in the following citation:

Chen P, Halo W, Rife L, Wang XP, Shen D, Chen J, et al., Fong HK (2001) 
A photic visual cycle of rhodopsin regeneration is dependent on Rgr. 
Nat Genet 3:256-260.

This may be tagged in several ways, depending on the publisher’s processing needs

• Only the authors to be printed or displayed may be tagged, with the element <etal> as an empty element, used to generated the text “et al.”

  <person-group>
  <name><surname>Chen</surname><given-names>P</given-names></name>
  <name><surname>Halo</surname><given-names>W</given-names></name>
  <name><surname>Rife</surname><given-names>L</given-names></name>
  <name><surname>Wang</surname><given-names>XP</given-names></name>
  <name><surname>Shen</surname><given-names>D</given-names></name>
  <name><surname>Chen</surname><given-names>J</given-names></name>
  <etal/>
  <name><surname>Fong</surname><given-names>HK</given-names></name>
  </person-group>

• Only the authors to be displayed may be tagged, with the element <etal> containing the interposing text, such as ellipses (&#x02026; or &hellip;) or “et al.”

  <person-group>
  <name><surname>Chen</surname><given-names>P</given-names></name>
  <name><surname>Halo</surname><given-names>W</given-names></name>
  <name><surname>Rife</surname><given-names>L</given-names></name>
  <name><surname>Wang</surname><given-names>XP</given-names></name>
  <name><surname>Shen</surname><given-names>D</given-names></name>
  <name><surname>Chen</surname><given-names>J</given-names></name>
  <etal>&hellip;</etal>
  <name><surname>Fong</surname><given-names>HK</given-names></name>
  </person-group>

• All the authors may be tagged, with the element <etal> used to the hold the text, such as ellipses or “et al.”. The authors that are to be displayed may be flagged with a @specific-use value such as “display” or the authors that are not to be displayed may be flagged with a @specific-use such as “not for display” or “search-only”:

  <person-group>
  <name><surname>Chen</surname><given-names>P</given-names></name>
  <name><surname>Halo</surname><given-names>W</given-names></name>
  <name><surname>Rife</surname><given-names>L</given-names></name>
  <name><surname>Wang</surname><given-names>XP</given-names></name>
  <name><surname>Shen</surname><given-names>D</given-names></name>
  <name><surname>Chen</surname><given-names>J</given-names></name>
  <etal>et al.</etal>
  <name><surname>Fong</surname><given-names>HK</given-names></name>
  <name specific-use="search-only">
    <surname>Cho</surname><given-names>S</given-names></name>
  <name specific-use="search-only">
    <surname>Ping</surname><given-names>M</given-names></name>
  <name specific-use="search-only">
    <surname>Wang</surname><given-names>CJ</given-names></name>
  </person-group>
  

Related Essay: For a discussion on the use of <etal> in the APA 6th Edition style for preserving only 7 authors, see Ordinal Numbers.

Context: In this Tag Set, this element may only be used in bibliographic references (in <element-citation>, <mixed-citation>, and <person-group>).