When you write an essay, a report, or a research paper, you need to show where your ideas came from. In the American Psychological Association style, known as APA style, that job is done by in-text citations: short references inside your sentences that point to the full entry in your reference list. Citing a work by one author is straightforward. Citing a work by several authors is where most students get confused, because the rules change depending on how many authors there are and whether the citation sits inside or outside the brackets.
This guide explains APA in-text citations for multiple authors in plain language, with no clutter and no distractions. It covers the current seventh edition rules, which are the ones most colleges, universities, and journals use today. You will learn the rule for two authors, the rule for three or more authors, the difference between narrative and parenthetical citations, and the special cases that trip people up, such as group authors, works by the same first author, and authors with the same surname.
Read the whole guide once, and you will be able to cite almost any multi-author source correctly. Keep the tables near the end as a quick reference while you write, and check your reference list against the same rules before you submit your work.
How APA In-Text Citations Work
An APA in-text citation has two parts: the author or authors, and the year of publication. Together, they act as a pointer. The reader sees “(Smith, 2021)” in your text, turns to your reference list, finds the entry that begins with Smith and 2021, and can then locate the full source. If the pointer does not match the reference list entry, the system breaks down, so consistency matters more than anything else.
There are two forms of in-text citation. A narrative citation puts the author names in your sentence itself, with the year in brackets straight after them, as in “Smith and Jones (2021) found that…” A parenthetical citation puts the whole citation in brackets at the end of the idea, as in “…as several studies have shown (Smith & Jones, 2021).” Notice the small but important difference: narrative citations use the word “and” between author names, while parenthetical citations use the ampersand symbol “&”. Getting that detail right is one of the easiest ways to make your work look polished.
Page numbers are added when you quote directly, or when you refer to a specific passage, as in “(Smith & Jones, 2021, p. 42)”. For a paraphrase, a page number is not required in APA style, although many teachers welcome one when it helps the reader find the idea. When you quote, always include the page number, or a paragraph number or section heading for a source without pages.
Why The Rules Change With Author Count
APA style tries to balance two goals: giving proper credit, and keeping your sentences readable. Listing seven authors every time you mention a source would make your writing clumsy and hard to follow. Shortening every citation to the first author only would hide the contributions of the other authors and could cause confusion when two sources share a first author. The rules below are a compromise: full names when the list is short, and a shortened form when the list is long, with extra details added only when they are needed to tell sources apart.
Two Authors: The Simple Rule
For a work by two authors, always name both authors in every citation, in every part of your paper. There is no shortening, no matter how many times you cite the work. This is the simplest multi-author rule, and it is also the one most often broken by students who shorten two-author citations out of habit.
In a narrative citation, write both surnames joined by “and”: “Patel and Okafor (2023) argue that feedback works best when it is specific.” In a parenthetical citation, use the ampersand: “Feedback works best when it is specific (Patel & Okafor, 2023).” The order of the names is the order in which they appear on the source itself, not alphabetical order and not the order you prefer. Keep that order in every citation of that work.
If you quote from a two-author work, add the page number after the year in both forms: “Patel and Okafor (2023, p. 18) argue that feedback works best when it is specific” and “Feedback works best when it is specific (Patel & Okafor, 2023, p. 18).” The same pattern holds for every citation style in this guide: narrative uses “and”, parenthetical uses “&”, and the year follows the authors.
Three Or More Authors: Use Et Al.
For a work by three or more authors, APA seventh edition uses a short form from the very first citation: name only the first author, followed by “et al.” and the year. The phrase “et al.” is short for the Latin “et alia”, meaning “and others”. It is written in roman type, not italics, with a full stop after “al” but not after “et”, as in “Garcia et al. (2020)”.
In a narrative citation, the pattern is: “Garcia et al. (2020) found that…” In a parenthetical citation, the pattern is: “…as earlier research has shown (Garcia et al., 2020).” Note that in the parenthetical form, a comma follows “et al.” before the year, while in the narrative form the year sits in brackets on its own. This rule applies from the first mention onwards. Older APA editions used a different rule, naming all authors on the first citation and shortening later ones, so if you learned APA from an older textbook, this is the change most likely to catch you out.
Your reference list, by contrast, gives the full picture. In the reference list, you list up to twenty authors in full before using an ellipsis for longer author lists. The in-text citation is a shortcut; the reference list is the complete record. Never shorten the reference list entry just because the in-text citation is short.
Et Al. Punctuation And Common Mistakes
Three small errors appear again and again with “et al.” First, some writers put a comma before it in narrative citations, as in “Garcia, et al. (2020)”, which is incorrect. Second, some writers forget the full stop, writing “et al (2020)”. Third, some writers italicise it, as if it were a foreign phrase to be set apart. APA style keeps “et al.” in normal type. Keep the form exactly as shown in the examples, and your citations will be correct in this detail, which markers notice quickly.
Another common mistake is using “et al.” for two-author works. Do not do this. Two authors are always both named. “Et al.” is reserved for three or more authors, where it stands in for the second and later authors. If you remember that one boundary, you will avoid the most frequent multi-author error in student writing.
When Two Sources Share The Same First Author
Sometimes two different sources in your paper have the same first author and the same year, or the same first author with different co-authors. The basic “et al.” rule would then produce two identical in-text citations, and your reader would not know which source you meant. APA style solves this by adding just enough extra names to tell the sources apart.
Suppose you cite a paper by Garcia, Lopez, and Chen from 2020, and another paper by Garcia, Patel, and Nguyen, also from 2020. A plain “Garcia et al. (2020)” could mean either one. In this case, you add the second author as well, giving “Garcia, Lopez, et al. (2020)” for the first and “Garcia, Patel, et al. (2020)” for the second. You keep adding names only until the two citations differ, and no further. This rule applies only when the citations would otherwise be identical, including the year.
If the two sources have the same first author but different years, no extra names are needed, because the year already separates them: “Garcia et al. (2019)” and “Garcia et al. (2020)” are clearly different. The same logic applies throughout APA style: add detail only when it is needed to remove ambiguity, and keep citations as short as the rules allow.
Group Authors And Organisations
Some sources are written by an organisation, a government department, or a research team rather than by named individuals. These are called group authors, and the organisation name takes the place of the author surname. On the first citation, give the full name of the organisation, and if it has a well-known abbreviation, you may introduce it in brackets: “The National Health Service (NHS, 2022) reported…” or “(National Health Service [NHS], 2022)”. In later citations, use the abbreviation alone: “(NHS, 2022)”.
If the group has no common abbreviation, use its full name in every citation. Do not invent an abbreviation, and do not shorten the name informally. The point, as always, is that the in-text citation must match the start of the reference list entry, so the reader can find the source without guessing.
When a work has both a group author and individual authors, follow the order shown on the source. In most cases, the reference list entry begins with the names as printed, and your in-text citation mirrors the first of those names, with “et al.” if there are three or more. When in doubt, copy the author line from the source exactly, and build your citation from that.
Authors With The Same Surname
If your paper cites two different authors who share a surname, add their initials to the in-text citation, even if the years differ. For example, if you cite works by J. Garcia and M. Garcia, write “(J. Garcia, 2021)” and “(M. Garcia, 2020)”. This rule applies even when the full author lists are different, because the surname alone would not tell the reader which Garcia you mean. The initials appear in both narrative and parenthetical citations, and they are included for every citation of those authors in your paper, not just the first.
This is a different problem from the same-first-author rule above. That rule deals with identical shortened citations. This rule deals with identical surnames belonging to different people. Both exist for the same reason: your citation must point to exactly one source, without ambiguity.
Quick Reference Table
| Number Of Authors | Narrative Citation | Parenthetical Citation |
|---|---|---|
| One author | Smith (2021) | (Smith, 2021) |
| Two authors | Smith and Jones (2021) | (Smith & Jones, 2021) |
| Three or more authors | Smith et al. (2021) | (Smith et al., 2021) |
| Group author, first use | National Health Service (NHS, 2022) | (National Health Service [NHS], 2022) |
| Group author, later use | NHS (2022) | (NHS, 2022) |
| Same surname, different authors | J. Smith (2021) | (J. Smith, 2021) |
| Direct quotation, three or more authors | Smith et al. (2021, p. 42) | (Smith et al., 2021, p. 42) |
Secondary Sources, Repeated Citations, And Other Cases
A secondary source is a work you have not read yourself, but which is described in a source you have read. APA style prefers that you find and cite the original, but when that is impossible, you cite both: name the original work in your sentence, and put the source you actually read in brackets, as in “Garcia’s study (as cited in Patel & Okafor, 2023)”. Only the source you read appears in your reference list. Use secondary citations sparingly, because they weaken your argument: you are reporting someone else’s summary, not the evidence itself.
When you cite the same source several times in one paragraph, APA style allows you to drop the year after the first narrative citation in that paragraph, as long as the citation is clear and no other source interrupts it. In parenthetical citations, the year stays every time. This small allowance keeps paragraphs readable, but it only applies within a single paragraph. Start a new paragraph, and the full citation, with the year, returns.
For works with no author at all, use the first few words of the title instead of an author name, in title case and in quotation marks for an article or chapter, or in italics for a book or report. For works with no date, use “n.d.” in place of the year. These cases are less common in multi-author research, but they follow the same principle: give the reader a pointer that matches the reference list entry.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I use et al. for two authors in APA?
No. Two-author works always name both authors in every citation. Et al. is used only for works with three or more authors.
Do I list all authors on the first citation and shorten later ones?
Not in APA seventh edition. For three or more authors, you use the shortened “et al.” form from the first citation onwards. The older rule changed with the seventh edition, so check which edition your course requires.
When do I use “and” and when do I use “&”?
Use “and” in narrative citations, where the names are part of your sentence, and use “&” in parenthetical citations, where the names sit inside brackets. The same applies in the reference list, where “&” is used before the final author.
Does et al. appear in the reference list too?
No. The reference list gives full author details, up to twenty authors, before an ellipsis is used for very long author lists. Et al. is an in-text shortcut only.
What if two sources have the same first author and year?
Add enough additional author names to tell them apart, such as “Garcia, Lopez, et al. (2020)” versus “Garcia, Patel, et al. (2020)”. If the years differ, the year alone is enough to separate them.
Conclusion
APA in-text citations for multiple authors follow a simple pattern once you see it whole. Two authors are always both named. Three or more authors are shortened to the first name plus “et al.” from the first citation. Narrative citations use “and”, parenthetical citations use “&”, and extra details are added only when they are needed to remove ambiguity, such as when two sources share a first author or when two authors share a surname. The reference list then does the full job of recording every author.
Before you submit, run a quick check: does every in-text citation match a reference list entry, does every reference list entry get cited in the text, and have you used “and” and “&” in the right places? If the answer to all three is yes, your citations are in good shape. The rules may feel fiddly at first, but they become automatic with practice, and they give your writing the credibility that careful referencing earns.
For more plain-language research and writing guides, see how to look up available domain names and what earnest means in everyday use. If you are checking an organisation’s details before you cite it, our guide to Delaware corporation name searches explains how official records work.
