A student recently sent me a draft master thesis which contained an interesting attempt at making an APA "et al." citation possessive. The citation was:
The implications of this research goes back to Seville’s et. al., (2008) definition of resilience...
I was surprised at how quickly I spotted this, and immediately went to add a comment that perhaps this should be formatted as "Seville et al.'s"... before I brought myself up short.
What was I thinking? I was attempting to apply the English plurals rules - 'cups of tea', 'tape measures' - to 'et al.'. This is a Latin construction... and contraction, for that matter. Surely we would not Anglicise a Latin construction by belting a possessive apostrophe on it?
So I went for a riffle through my APA 7th edition handbook (2019). While on page 162 there was a brief discussion of style around possessive apostrophe use, it did not relate to in text citations. Time for a Google search.
I hit pay-dirt with the wise words of Sarah Madden who responded to a Quora question on just this topic (Klyne, 2020). Sarah said that, as 'et al.' is already a plural abbreviation for 'and the others', making the phrase possessive would be inelegant. How masterful! Her suggestion was a rewrite to make the possessive unnecessary. A later responder, Joanne Treasure, also added that, as a Latin phrase, we should not attempt a possessive aphostrophisation (if that is even a word!).
A simple rewrite avoids a possessive apostrophe completely:
The definition of resilience (Seville et al., 2008) has implications for this research...
Writing is fascinating.
Sam
References:
- APA (2019). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association: The official guide to APA style (7th ed.). American Psychological Association
- Klyne, M. (2020). What is the possessive form of et al. in APA style? https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-possessive-form-of-et-al-in-APA-style
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