<etal>
Et Al.
Indicator of the presence of unnamed contributors. Typically indicated in print with
the text “et al.” or with an ellipsis.
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 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 (… or …) 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>…</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>).
Content Model
<!ELEMENT etal %etal-model; >
Expanded Content Model
(#PCDATA)*
Description
Text, numbers, or special characters, zero or more
This element may be contained in:
Example 1
In an element-style bibliographic citation (punctuation and spacing removed):
...
<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>
...Example 2
In a mixed-style bibliographic citation (punctuation and spacing
preserved):
...
<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>–<lpage>433</lpage>.
<pub-id pub-id-type="pmid">7807432</pub-id>.
</mixed-citation>
</ref>
...