LibAnswers: Referencing

For students in the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences:

When there are four or more authors you need to list the first author and then use et al.

This is for both in-text citations and references; i.e.:

(Norrie et al., 2012)

Norrie, C. et al. (2012) 'Doing it differently? A review of literature on teaching reflective practice across health and social care professions', Reflective Practice, 13(4), pp. 565–578.

However, several programme areas within the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences have a requirement of using et al. in the citation and then list all of the authors in the reference, like this:

(Norrie et al., 2012)

Norrie, C., Hammond, J., D'Avray, L., Collington, V. and Fook, J. (2012) 'Doing it differently? A review of literature on teaching reflective practice across health and social care professions', Reflective Practice, 13(4), pp. 565–578.

The programme areas are:

Audiology

Speech and Language Therapy

Education

For students in all other faculties:

If your programme is in the Business and Law, Art, Design and Humanities or Computing, Engineering and Media faculty, you will need to use et al. both for the in-text citation and full reference at the end for sources with four or more authors.  The only exception to this would be if you have been given specific instructions by your module or programme leader that they want you to list all authors in the reference list.