<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

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 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 used “et al.” in a different 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>
    
Attributes

Base Attributes

Models and Context
May be contained in
Description
Any combination of:
Content Model
<!ELEMENT  etal         %etal-model;                                 >
Expanded Content Model

(#PCDATA | email | ext-link | uri | inline-supplementary-material | related-article | related-object | hr | bold | fixed-case | italic | monospace | overline | overline-start | overline-end | roman | sans-serif | sc | serif | strike | underline | underline-start | underline-end | ruby | alternatives | inline-graphic | inline-media | private-char | chem-struct | inline-formula | tex-math | mml:math | abbrev | index-term | index-term-range-end | milestone-end | milestone-start | named-content | styled-content | fn | target | xref | sub | sup | x)*

Tagged Sample

In citations

Mixed citation
...
<ref>
 <mixed-citation publication-type="journal" publication-format="print">
  <string-name><surname>Hallal</surname>
  <given-names>AH</given-names></string-name>,
  ...
  <string-name><surname>Manning</surname>
  <given-names>RJ</given-names></string-name>, <etal>et al.</etal>
  <article-title>Magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography
  accurately detects common bile duct stones in resolving gallstone 
  pancreatitis</article-title>. <source>J Am Coll Surg</source>. 
  <year iso-8601-date="2005-06">2005</year> <month>Jun</month>; 
  <volume>200</volume>(<issue>6</issue>):<fpage>869</fpage>
  -<lpage>875</lpage>.</mixed-citation>
</ref>
...
Element citation
...
<ref>
 <element-citation publication-type="journal" publication-format="print">
  <name><surname>Hallal</surname>
   <given-names>AH</given-names></name>
  ...
  <name><surname>Manning</surname>
   <given-names>RJ</given-names></name>
  <etal/>
  <article-title>Magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography
   accurately detects common bile duct stones in resolving
   gallstone pancreatitis</article-title>
  <source>J Am Coll Surg</source>
  <year iso-8601-date="2005-06">2005</year>
  <month>Jun</month>
  <volume>200</volume>
  <issue>6</issue>
  <fpage>869</fpage>
  <lpage>875</lpage>
 </element-citation>
</ref>
...