Help with "et al" :(

EndNote EndNote Styles, Filters, and Connections
1

I am in the process of finalising my thesis, and noticed that several of my citations have “et al” (Smith. et al, 2011) and others do not.  I noticed this only happens to certain refs, generally those with only one author.  i have changed the authors list in the citations menu so that if there is one or more authors, it should have ‘et al’, but it doesnt work :frowning:

any hints or clues?

Many thanks 

Rich

2

@richk wrote:

 …  I noticed this only happens to certain refs, generally those with only one author.  i have changed the authors list in the citations menu so that if there is one or more authers, it should have ‘et al’, but it doesnt work :frowning: …

 

 

If I’m interpreting your description correctly, you’ve mis-set the number of authors. The minimal number of authors should be a number greater than "1  (e.g., “3”).  If the “et. al” is set to appear when there’s “one [or more]” authors, that’s why “et. al” continues to appear when the in-text citations comprise only a single author.

Also note that changes to the output style file will be saved as a new file with the word “Copy” added to the file name (e.g., “APA 6th Copy”) so you’ll need to adjust both EndNote and MS Word to use the new output file.

3

thanks for the reply, its the other way around, in that any reference with ony one author has no et al, and those with multiple authors have et al.  its really annoying :angry:

i have played with the number of author lists in the output styles with no luck :frowning:

4

@richk wrote:

… any reference with ony one author has no et al, and those with multiple authors have et al…

Why would you want one author to have “et al.”?  The phrase “et. al” means “and others” and is used in the case of multiple authors.  For example, a citation such as (Smith, Richards, Orso, 2011) would be: (Smith et al., 2011). 

But in the case of a single author such as (Smith, 2011), it will remain as: (Smith 2011). To include "et al."for a single author is incorrect.

5

CrazyGecko is correct.  A single author would never be et al, there are no other “and the rest”.  And two authors are never et al, because ther aren’t any plural all the rest, so it should be Smith and Brown. – thus only 3 (and some journals like three!, so 4) or more should reflect the et al.