A narrative citation with et al is the APA style way of naming a source with several authors inside the flow of your own sentence, rather than tucking the whole reference into parentheses at the end. For example, you might write that Johnson and colleagues found a pattern, using the first author’s surname followed by the Latin abbreviation et al., which means and others. This guide explains narrative citation with et al in plain language: when to use it, how it differs from a parenthetical citation, how many authors trigger it, and how to format it correctly under the current APA rules, with examples you can adapt to your own writing.
The distinction at the heart of narrative citation with et al is simple. In a narrative citation, the authors’ names are part of your sentence, so the reader meets them as they read: Smith et al. (2020) argued that class size affects outcomes. In a parenthetical citation, the names stay inside brackets at the end: class size affects outcomes (Smith et al., 2020). Both cite the same source, and both need a matching entry in the reference list, but they feel different to read. Narrative citations suit literature reviews and discussions where you want to foreground who did the work, while parenthetical citations suit sentences where the finding matters more than the finder.
narrative citation with et al: The Core Rule
Under the seventh edition of the APA Publication Manual, a narrative citation with et al is used for any work with three or more authors. You give the first author’s surname, followed by et al., and then the year in parentheses, as in Patel et al. (2021) reported. You do not list the second, third, or later authors in the in-text citation, even on first mention; that is a change from older APA editions, which required all authors on first use. The full author list still appears in the reference list at the end of your paper, so no credit is lost, and the in-text form stays short and readable throughout.
For works with one or two authors, et al. is never used. A single-author work is cited by surname alone, as in Garcia (2019) proposed. A two-author work names both authors every time, joined by and in a narrative citation, as in Garcia and Lee (2019) proposed, and by an ampersand in a parenthetical citation. The narrative citation with et al form therefore begins exactly at three authors, and recognising that threshold is the single most useful rule for students: one or two authors, name them all; three or more, use the first surname plus et al. from the very first citation onwards.
narrative citation with et al in Different Sentence Positions
A narrative citation with et al can open a sentence, sit in the middle, or anchor a clause, and the punctuation follows the position. At the start, the pattern is: Author et al. (Year) followed by a verb, for example, Thompson et al. (2022) demonstrated that feedback timing matters. In the middle, the citation still reads as part of the grammar: the study by Thompson et al. (2022) showed that feedback timing matters. The year always stays in parentheses immediately after et al., and the abbreviation itself always ends with a full stop, because et al. is short for et alia, and the stop belongs to the abbreviation, not to the end of your sentence.
Writers sometimes worry about repeating a narrative citation with et al many times in one paragraph. APA guidance allows you to cite a source once in a paragraph and then refer to it more briefly, provided the meaning stays clear, but the safest habit for coursework is to cite again whenever you introduce a new claim from that source. Repeating the short form costs only a few words and removes any doubt about which sentence carries which evidence. If a paragraph discusses two sources with the same first author and year, add a distinguishing letter to the year, as in Chen et al. (2020a) and Chen et al. (2020b), matching the letters used in your reference list.
Et Al. With Groups and Repeated Citations
When the author is an organisation rather than a person, the same narrative logic applies, with the organisation name spelled out on first use and an abbreviation introduced if you will use it again. For example, a first narrative citation might name a national statistics body in full, with its abbreviation in brackets, and later citations can use the abbreviation alone. The et al. abbreviation, however, is reserved for human author lists: you do not add et al. after an organisation name, since an organisation is already a single author for citation purposes. Keeping that boundary clear prevents one of the most common formatting errors in student papers.
Punctuation and Capitalisation Details
Three small details cause most lost marks. First, et al. is not italicised in APA style, and only the al. part carries a full stop, never et. on its own. Second, in a narrative citation the word and is spelled out for two authors, while parenthetical citations use an ampersand, so the two forms are not interchangeable. Third, the year in a narrative citation with et al goes in parentheses right after the author element, while any page number for a direct quotation goes in a separate parenthesis at the end of the quotation, as in Thompson et al. (2022) noted that timing was decisive (p. 45). Getting those three details right makes a paper look professionally formatted at a glance.
narrative citation with et al Versus Parenthetical Citation
Choosing between a narrative citation with et al and a parenthetical citation is a stylistic decision, and good academic writing mixes both. Narrative citations work best when you are comparing researchers, tracing a debate, or giving credit in a literature review: Lee et al. (2018) found one pattern, while Patel et al. (2021) found another. That sentence structure lets the reader follow who said what without hunting through brackets. Parenthetical citations work best when the evidence should speak without interrupting the sentence: feedback timing affects retention (Lee et al., 2018; Patel et al., 2021). Notice that in the parenthetical form, the comma after et al. and the semicolon between sources are part of the bracketed pattern.
A useful rule of thumb is to use narrative citations for the sources your argument engages with most directly, and parenthetical citations for supporting evidence that backs a point without needing discussion. Overusing narrative citations can make prose feel like a list of names, while overusing parenthetical citations can make it hard to tell which researcher holds which view. Alternating the two, and varying your verbs beyond argued and found, keeps academic writing readable. Verbs such as demonstrated, reported, observed, and concluded each carry slightly different weight, so choose the one that matches what the source actually did.
| Authors | Narrative citation | Parenthetical citation |
|---|---|---|
| One author | Garcia (2019) | (Garcia, 2019) |
| Two authors | Garcia and Lee (2019) | (Garcia & Lee, 2019) |
| Three or more authors | Garcia et al. (2019) | (Garcia et al., 2019) |
Common Errors in narrative citation with et al
The most common error is listing all authors on first mention, a habit carried over from older APA editions or from other referencing styles. Under current APA rules, three or more authors take et al. from the first citation, so a long author list in the text is a sign of an outdated template. A second error is writing et. al. with a stop after et, or italicising the abbreviation, both of which look wrong to a marker even if the meaning is clear. A third error is forgetting the reference-list entry: every narrative citation with et al must match a full entry, with all authors named, in the reference list, or the citation points nowhere.
Another frequent problem is ambiguity when two sources share a first author and year, or when the same first author leads different teams in the same year. APA solves this with letter suffixes on the year, and with extra surnames where two different first authors share a surname. If two sources would both shorten to the same form, spell out enough additional surnames to distinguish them, and apply the same distinction in the reference list. Finally, remember that et al. is a Latin abbreviation, not a plural marker for a single author, so it should never appear after one name alone, and it should never be used to hide an author you simply did not look up.
Frequently Asked Questions About narrative citation with et al
When do I use narrative citation with et al? Use it for any source with three or more authors when the author names form part of your sentence, from the first citation onwards.
Do I need to list all authors the first time? No, not under current APA rules. The first surname plus et al. is correct on first and later mentions, with the full list in the reference list.
Is et al. italicised? No. Write it in roman type, with a full stop after al. only, as in Smith et al. (2020).
What is the difference from a parenthetical citation? In a narrative citation the authors are part of the sentence and the year follows in parentheses; in a parenthetical citation the whole reference sits in brackets at the end of the claim.
Conclusion
A narrative citation with et al is a small formatting choice that signals careful academic writing. For three or more authors, name the first author, add et al., and put the year in parentheses, as in Smith et al. (2020) showed. For one or two authors, name them all and reserve et al. for larger teams. Match every in-text citation to a complete reference-list entry, watch the punctuation, and mix narrative and parenthetical forms to keep your prose readable. Master that pattern and the narrative citation with et al becomes automatic: a short, consistent way to give credit inside your own sentences, letting your argument stay in the foreground while your sources stay properly acknowledged.
For related citation guides, see this two-author citation guide, this multiple-author citation guide, and this no-author citation guide.