Convention for narrative citations of multiple authors in APA style?

Asked by reverie (1777

) May 8th, 2009

Sorry, this isn’t the most fascinating question, but… I’m writing a short psychological paper for my Masters and I need to reference a journal article that has six authors. The usual resource I use for APA style guidelines states that for multiple authors (three, four or five), that in the first narrative citation, write all surnames in full and then use “et al.” for subsequent mentions. Pretty obvious, but annoyingly, I need to reference a paper authored by six people and I don’t know how I should do this – is it correct to treat it just how I would if it was a three/four/five author paper?

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3 Answers

Well I had a look at a couple of online guides and got two different answers.

One suggested using – first author et al., (year) from the start, (listing all authors in the references).

Another suggested the correct format is the first 6 authors and then et al., for the remaining authors.

I would tentatively use the first mothod on the basis it is less clumsy when reading and then check with your college (tutor or library) for further advice and see if there is a preferred method.

Lightlyseared (34863

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Try Microsoft Word 2007. There you’ll find Bibliography in references.
As far as I know, mention three authors and then et al if there are more in citation.

prasad (3859

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Thanks so much for your advice, both of you. It’s much appreciated!

reverie (1777

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