Q. How and why do I use et al.?

Et al. is a shortened form of the Latin expression et alii meaning ‘and others’.  This is abbreviated to et al. (with a full stop at the end) and it is used in a citation when you have three authors or more.  This makes your citation more manageable. 

When using the authors name in your writing you should include the full stop after et al. 

For example: Burrows et al. (2009) state that...

However when not using the author's name in your writing and the author/s surname/s are placed in brackets, you also need to add a comma after the full stop, as this follows the usual MMU Harvard standard for citations.

For example: (Burrows et al., 2009)

If you have used et al. in your citation you need to list all authors in your reference list, for sources with up to eight authors. For sources with more than eight authors, follow the instruction in this section:

Sources with more than eight authors

For more information on presenting citations see the citations section of the MMU Harvard guide