Using ‘et al’ in Cranfield Author-date style referencing
30/05/2017
Academic writing is full of idiosyncrasies, one of which being the Latin abbreviation ‘et al’. The term et al means ‘and others’ and is often used in academic literature to abbreviate a list of authors’ names. For this reason, using et al in your in-text citation allows your references to be shorter. It also helps them appear tidier if you are referring to the same citation numerous times in your work.
Whether or not you can use et al is determined by the number of authors in your citation. Where you have three or fewer authors, you will need to list all the authors in both your in-text citation and reference list.
However in the Cranfield author-date style, when a source has four or more authors you can list the first author followed by et al. in your in-text citation. In your reference list however, you will need to list all of the authors (even if there are 20 or more of them!).
Here’s an example with three or fewer authors:
In-text citation (author-date style):
Macdonald, Kleinaltenkamp and Wilson (2016)
Reference:
Macdonald, E. K., Kleinaltenkamp, M. and Wilson, H. N. (2016) ‘How business customers judge solutions: Solution quality and value in use’, Journal of Marketing, 80 (3), pp. 96-120.
… and with four or more authors:
In-text citation (author-date style):
Baines et al. (2014)
Reference:
Baines, P., Crawford, I., O’Shaughnessy, N., Worcester, R. and Mortimore, R. (2014) ‘Positioning in political marketing: How semiotic analysis adds value to traditional survey approaches’, Journal of Marketing Management. 30 (1-2), pp. 172-200.
For more information on referencing, including our guides to both, check out the referencing support page on the MIRC webpages.
As always, if you have any questions about referencing, please contact MIRC or the Kings Norton Library.
Public domain image by Pixabay https://pixabay.com/en/books-bookstore-book-reading-shop-1204029/, CC0
Categories & Tags:
Leave a comment on this post:
You might also like…
My Apprenticeship Journey – Broadening Horizons
Laura, Senior Systems Engineer at a leading aircraft manufacturing company, joined Cranfield on the Systems Engineering Master’s Apprenticeship after initially considering taking a year off from her role to complete an MSc. Apprenticeship over MSc? ...
The Library app is back!
The Library app is back! It's exactly the same as before (although it will get a fresh look in a few months) and if you hadn't removed it from an existing device it should just ...
PhD researcher at the IF Oxford Science and Ideas Festival
IF Oxford is a science and ideas Festival packed with inspiring, entertaining and immersive events for people all ages. PhD researcher, Zahra attended the festival. Here she shares what motivated her to get involved. ...
What leadership skills are required to meet the demands of digitalisation?
Digital ecosystems are shifting the dynamics of the world as we know it. With digitalisation being a norm in the software industry, there is currently a rapid rise in its translation ...
My PhD experience within the Centre for Air Transport at Cranfield University
Mengyuan began her PhD in the Centre for Air Transport in October 2022. She recently shared what she is working on and how she has found studying at Cranfield University so ...
In the tyre tracks of the Edwardian geologists
In April 1905 a group of amateur geologists loaded their cumbersome bicycles on to a north-bound train at a London rail station and set off for Bedfordshire on a field excursion. In March 2024 a ...