Getting in text citations with multiple authors apa right is one of the most common worries for students writing in APA style, because the rules change depending on how many authors a source has, and they changed significantly between the sixth and seventh editions of the Publication Manual. This guide covers the current seventh-edition rules in full: how to cite works by one author, two authors, and three or more authors, how narrative and parenthetical citations differ, and how to handle the special cases that cause the most confusion. It is written for students and researchers who need to apply the rules correctly, not just understand them in theory.
In Text Citations With Multiple Authors APA: The Basics
The core principle of in text citations with multiple authors apa is simple once it is stated: for a work by three or more authors, you name only the first author followed by et al. in every citation, including the first one, while for a work by two authors, you name both authors in every citation. That single rule covers the vast majority of cases, and it replaced the sixth-edition rule, under which works with three to five authors were listed in full on first citation and shortened thereafter. Many students still follow the old rule by mistake, because older guides and older papers use it, so checking that you are following the seventh edition is the first step to getting this right.
One Author and Two Authors
For a work by a single author, in text citations with multiple authors apa rules do not yet apply, and the citation is simply the author’s surname and the year, in either narrative or parenthetical form. A narrative citation weaves the name into the sentence, for example, Smith (2020) argued that, while a parenthetical citation puts both elements in brackets at the end of the clause, for example, (Smith, 2020). Both forms are correct, and the choice depends on the flow of your sentence: narrative citations suit discussions where the author is the subject, while parenthetical citations suit sentences where the finding matters more than the name.
For a work by two authors, name both authors in every citation, joined by and in a narrative citation and by an ampersand in a parenthetical citation. In narrative form, that looks like Smith and Jones (2020) found that, while in parenthetical form it looks like (Smith & Jones, 2020). The distinction between and and the ampersand is a small detail that markers notice, because it is one of the easiest APA rules to check, and getting it wrong throughout a paper creates a consistently unprofessional impression. Two-author works are never shortened to et al., no matter how many times you cite them, because et al. is reserved for works with three or more authors.
Three or More Authors: The Et Al. Rule
For works with three or more authors, in text citations with multiple authors apa style requires the first author’s surname followed by et al. and the year, in every citation from the first onwards. In narrative form, that looks like Smith et al. (2020) reported that, while in parenthetical form it looks like (Smith et al., 2020). Note that et al. is followed by a full stop, because it is an abbreviation of the Latin et alia, meaning and others, and that no comma separates the name from et al. in the current edition. The reference list entry, by contrast, lists all authors up to twenty, which is where many students get confused, because the in-text form and the reference form follow different rules.
There is one important exception to the et al. rule: when shortening to the first author plus et al. would make two different sources look identical, because they share the same first author and year, you add as many following authors as needed to distinguish them. For example, if you cite two 2020 papers whose first author is Smith, one by Smith, Jones and Brown and another by Smith, Jones and Taylor, you would cite them as Smith, Jones, Brown, et al. (2020) and Smith, Jones, Taylor, et al. (2020) in the text, so that readers can tell them apart. This exception is rare in undergraduate work, but it is the correct solution when ambiguity arises, and it shows why understanding the reason behind a rule matters as much as memorising the rule itself.
Twenty-One or More Authors
The seventh edition also changed how in text citations with multiple authors apa handles very long author lists, although the in-text rule itself does not change: even for a work with twenty-one or more authors, the in-text citation is still the first author plus et al. and the year. The change affects the reference list, where works with up to twenty authors list all twenty, while works with twenty-one or more list the first nineteen, then an ellipsis, then the final author. This matters because large collaborative papers, common in medicine and physics, can have dozens or even hundreds of authors, and listing them all in a reference would be impractical.
For the in-text citation, however, the rule stays mercifully simple, and that simplicity is deliberate: the purpose of an in-text citation is to point the reader to the reference list entry, not to reproduce it, so a short form is all that is needed. Students sometimes worry that using et al. for a twenty-author paper is somehow disrespectful to the other authors, but it is the standard scholarly convention, and the full author list remains visible in the reference entry. If you are writing about a specific author’s contribution within a large collaboration, you can name that author in your sentence while still citing the work in the standard form, which keeps both the discussion and the citation correct.
Narrative vs Parenthetical Citations
Choosing between narrative and parenthetical forms for in text citations with multiple authors apa is a matter of sentence construction, and good academic writing uses both, varying the form to suit the point being made. Narrative citations put the author in the grammatical subject position, which is useful when you are discussing a particular researcher’s argument or comparing studies, for example, Smith et al. (2020) challenged earlier findings by showing that. Parenthetical citations keep the author out of the sentence structure, which suits sentences where the evidence matters more than its source, for example, Later research challenged earlier findings (Smith et al., 2020).
A common error is to mix the two forms within a single citation, for example by writing Smith et al. (2020) in a parenthetical position, or by putting a narrative name inside brackets. Another common error is to repeat the full citation unnecessarily in consecutive sentences about the same source: once a source has been cited in a paragraph, subsequent sentences in the same paragraph that clearly refer to the same source do not always need a fresh citation, although the year may be omitted in narrative citations after the first in the same paragraph. The Publication Manual sets out these paragraph-level rules in detail, and following them makes writing flow more naturally. For more on APA citation generally, our APA multiple-author guides and our two-author citation guides cover related cases.
In Text Citations With Multiple Authors APA: Common Mistakes
The most common mistakes with in text citations with multiple authors apa are using the sixth-edition rule of listing three to five authors in full on first citation, using et al. for two-author works, forgetting the ampersand in parenthetical two-author citations, and omitting the full stop after et al. Each of these is easy to check with a final proofread that searches for et al. throughout the document and verifies each instance against its source’s author count. Reference management software can help, but it can also perpetuate errors if it is set to an older edition, so checking the software’s style setting is worth a minute of your time.
Another frequent error is inconsistency between the in-text citation and the reference list, such as a surname spelled differently in the two places, or a year that does not match. Readers and markers use the in-text citation to find the reference, so any mismatch breaks that link and undermines confidence in the work. A final check that every in-text citation has a matching reference entry, and that every reference entry is cited at least once, catches most of these errors. With the seventh-edition rules understood, multiple-author citations become routine, and the time saved can go into the argument itself, which is where marks are really earned.
| Number of authors | Narrative citation | Parenthetical citation |
|---|---|---|
| One author | Smith (2020) | (Smith, 2020) |
| Two authors | Smith and Jones (2020) | (Smith & Jones, 2020) |
| Three or more | Smith et al. (2020) | (Smith et al., 2020) |
| Twenty-one or more | Smith et al. (2020) | (Smith et al., 2020) |
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I list all authors on first citation in APA 7th?
No. For three or more authors, use first author plus et al. in every citation, including the first.
When do I use et al. in APA?
Only for works with three or more authors. Two-author works always name both authors.
Do I use and or & in APA citations?
Use and in narrative citations and & in parenthetical citations for two-author works.
Conclusion
In text citations with multiple authors apa follow a simple seventh-edition pattern: one author is named alone, two authors are always both named, and three or more authors are shortened to the first author plus et al. in every citation. Narrative and parenthetical forms differ in how the names are joined, and the reference list follows separate rules for long author lists. Master those distinctions, proofread for the classic errors, and multiple-author citations become one of the most reliable parts of your academic writing.
