The four common citation styles have somewhat different rules for citing multiple authors. In order to reference these sources correctly, you will need to know how to cite them in bibliographies (also called Works Cited or reference lists), as well as in-text parenthetical citations or footnotes. After you've reviewed the guidelines developed by the Modern Language Association (MLA), the American Psychological Association (APA), the editors of the Chicago Manual of Style (Chicago), or the American Medical Association (AMA, in English), you will be prepared to create quotes in any style you need.
Steps
Method 1 of 4: Follow the Modern Language Association (MLA) guidelines
Step 1. Separate more than one author with commas and the word "and"
In the entries of the Works Cited, you will need to indicate the names of the authors, the title (in italics for books or in quotation marks for articles), the publisher and the date of publication. You should not reverse the name of the second author.
- For example: "Cannella, Gaile S., and Radhika Viruru. Childhood and Post colonization: Power, Education, and Contemporary Practice. RoutledgeFalmer, 2004".
- Unlike most other citation styles, MLA does not need to include the publisher's location for books published after 1900.
Step 2. Represent three or more authors with "et al" in Works Cited
If there are more than three authors listed on the title page, you will only write the first listed author. Then add a comma and write "et al."
For example: Cottrol, Robert J., et al. Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution. University Press of Kansas, 2003
Step 3. Use "and" to separate authors' last names in in-text citations
Write the last name of the first author indicated and then add "and". Then, write the last name of the second author and the pages to which you are going to refer. Place the full quote within the text in parentheses, and it should appear before the period at the end of the sentence where you quote, paraphrase or refer to the author's work.
For example: "(Cannella and Viruru 111)"
Step 4. Write "et al" in in-text citations for three or more authors
As in Works Cited, you just have to write down the name of the first author that appears on the title page. Then write "et al." and end with the page numbers that you are going to reference.
For example: "(Cottrol et al. 50)."
Method 2 of 4: Use the American Psychological Association (APA) format
Step 1. Separate between 2 and 7 authors with commas and the "and" in the reference list
Start with the last name of the first author on the list and then write the initials of their first and middle names. Then add a comma and the word "y" and write down the last name and initials of the next author. Write the year of publication in parentheses and then the title of the book in italics, capitalizing only the first words of the title and subtitle. It ends with the location, a colon, and the publisher.
- For example: "Cannella, G. S., and Viruru, R. (2004). Childhood and postcolonization: Power, education, and contemporary practice. New York: RoutledgeFalmer."
- The names of all authors must be reversed.
- Always capitalize proper names in titles and subtitles.
- Note that article titles will not be italicized or enclosed in quotation marks, and that they follow the same capitalization rules as book titles.
Step 2. Present eight or more authors with an ellipsis in the reference list
For these sources, you will enter the last names and initials of the first six authors that appear on the title page. Then, include an ellipsis (…) followed by the last name and initials of the last author of that page.
Step 3. Use the "and" between two and five authors in the first in-text citation
List the authors' last names in the order they appear on the title page. If there are only two, separate them with "and"; if there are between three and five, separate all surnames with commas and add "y" before the final author's surname. After doing it on the first date, you can replace all with "et al." in the remaining citations, except the last name of the first author.
For example, the in-text citation for Childhood and postcolonization: Power, education, and contemporary practice would look like this: "(Cannella and Viruru, 2004)" for the first citation and: "(Cannella et al., 2004)" for each subsequent citation
Step 4. Use "et al" in in-text citations for more than six authors
Although you must include up to seven names of authors in the list of references, you can represent them all with "et al.", Except the name of the first author, in each of the in-text citations (not just the first), when there are six or more authors.
Method 3 of 4: Referencing with the Chicago Manual of Style
Step 1. Separate two to three authors with commas and the "y" before the last author
For sources with more than one author, include the first name in the list (first name first, last name second) and a comma. Subsequently, add the names of the second and third authors and the title of the book in italics (do not italicize article titles, as they appear in quotation marks). Finally, indicate the location of the publication, the publisher and the publication date in parentheses.
- For example: "Robert J. Cottrol, Raymond T. Diamond, and Leland B. Ware, Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution (Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution) (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003) ".
- If you are citing specific page numbers, they will be placed at the end of the citation. Add a comma after the parentheses, write down the page numbers, and close the citation with a period.
- For the Chicago style, you will use footnotes instead of in-text citations. These are complete bibliographic citations that appear at the bottom of the page where you have referenced a text.
Step 2. Replace the author names with "et al" in the footnote if there are between four and ten
Write only the first author included in the title page and, after this, add a comma and "et al.". In the bibliography, you will write the names of all the authors.
Step 3. Make small changes to the footnotes in the bibliography
Since the footnotes are full bibliographic citations, all the information you need is already there. Just reverse the first and last name of the indicated first author, then add a comma and type the next author's name: first name, then last name. Separate the various elements of the bibliographic entry with periods, and finally, remove the parentheses that surround the information about the publication.
For example: "Cottrol, Robert J., Raymond T. Diamond, and Leland B. Ware. Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003 "
Step 4. Replace the names of more than ten authors with "et al" in the bibliography
You will continue to write the names of the first seven authors included on the title page. After that, replace the next authors on the list with "et al."
Method 4 of 4: Cite according to the American Medical Association guidelines
Step 1. Start by citing a book by two to six authors to learn the basic AMA format
It is quite easy to cite a book with fewer than six authors. Write the names of these with the last names first followed by the first letters of their names. Next, provide the title of the book in italics and, at the end, note the location and name of the publisher along with the date of publication.
- For example: "Cottrol, RJ, Diamond, RT, and Ware, LB. Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, Culture, and the Constitution. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas; 2003 ".
- Both the author and the title must be followed by periods. The location on the post must include the city and state (or city and country if outside the US) followed by a colon. Use a semicolon to separate the publisher's name and the publication date.
- Article titles are not italicized and not enclosed in quotation marks, and only the first word is capitalized.
Step 2. Replace the authors' names with "et al" when there are seven or more
If there are seven or more authors, write only the first three included on the title page. Then add a comma and write "et al."
- For example: Fauci, AS, Braunwald, E, Kasper, DL, et al., Eds. Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine. 17th ed. New York, NY: McGraw Hill; 2008.
- The rules are the same for authors and publishers, except that the list of publishers is followed by the abbreviation "eds."
Step 3. Use numerical citations within the text to relate them to the list of references
In the AMA style, include only an Arabic numeral superscript (a small number that sits above the line of text) to cite sources in the article. These numbers are connected to the full citations that you have written in the reference list.