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<etal> Et Al.

Indicator of the presence of unnamed contributors. Typically indicated in print with the text “et al.” or with an ellipsis.

Usage/Remarks

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 placeholder, 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 sixth edition 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>
Context
In this Tag Set, this element may only be used in bibliographic references (in <element-citation>, <mixed-citation>, and <person-group>).
Attributes
specific-use

Base Attributes

id
xml:base
xml:lang
Models and Context
May be contained in
<element-citation>, <mixed-citation>, <person-group>, <product>, <related-article>, <related-object>
Description
Text, numbers, or special characters, zero or more
Content Model
<!ELEMENT  etal         %etal-model;                                 >
Expanded Content Model

(#PCDATA)*

Tagged Sample

In citations

Mixed citation
...
<ref id="B26">
 <mixed-citation>
  <string-name><surname>Parker</surname>,
  <given-names>SG</given-names></string-name>,
  <string-name><surname>Du</surname>,
  <given-names>X</given-names></string-name>,
  <string-name><surname>Bardsley</surname>,
  <given-names>R</given-names></string-name>,
  <etal>et al.</etal> <article-title>Measuring 
  outcomes in care of the elderly</article-title>. 
  <source>J R Coll Phys Lond</source>
  <year iso-8601-date="1994">1994</year>;
  <volume>28</volume>:
  <fpage>428</fpage>&ndash;<lpage>433</lpage>.
  <pub-id pub-id-type="pmid">7807432</pub-id>.
 </mixed-citation>
</ref>
...
Element citation
...
<ref id="B26">
 <element-citation>
  <person-group>
   <name><surname>Parker</surname>
    <given-names>SG</given-names></name>
   <name><surname>Du</surname>
    <given-names>X</given-names></name>
   <name><surname>Bardsley</surname>
    <given-names>R</given-names></name>
   <etal/>
  </person-group>
  <article-title>Measuring outcomes in care of the elderly</article-title>
  <source>J R Coll Phys Lond</source>
  <year iso-8601-date="1994">1994</year>
  <volume>28</volume>
  <fpage>428</fpage>
  <lpage>433</lpage>
  <pub-id pub-id-type="pmid">7807432</pub-id>
 </element-citation>
</ref>
...
Related Resource
For a discussion on the use of <etal> in the APA 6th Edition style for preserving only 7 authors, see Ordinal Numbers.