How to Cite Several or More Than Three Authors Using the APA Format in a Journal Article

When citing scholarly sources with multiple authors, include all of the information necessary in your references. American Psychological Association style provides clear guidelines for citing journal articles with any number of authors.

Three to Seven Authors

The basic APA reference page format for a journal article is as follows:

Author Last name, First Initial(s). (Date). Article title. Periodical name, volume number(issue number), article pages.

When an article has between three and seven authors, all authors are listed in the order they appear in that article's credits. Each author name is separated by commas, and an ampersand is used between the last two author names. For example:

Vargas, L.S., Choi, H., Karsten, F., Ichijouji, K., & Tsumura, K. (2004). Probability and advantage. Game theorists monthly, 14(4), 13-18.

More Than Seven Authors

When an article has more than seven authors, all authors between the sixth and the last are replaced by an ellipsis. No ampersand is used. For example:

Flores, M., Marshall, B.D., Cooper, L., Cooper, B., Gaignun, J., Conriesque, L., . . . Mihara, M. (2008). Theories and practices: Researching outside of the box. The question, 29(7), 23 - 50.

In-Text Citation

When referencing a journal article in the body of your text, use a parenthetical citation containing the authors' last names and the date of publication.

For an article with three to five authors, list all authors names the first time you cite the article in your paper. For example:

(Vargas, Choi, Karsten, Ichijouji, & Tsumura, 2004)

If you cite the article again in your paper, replace all author's names past the first with "et al."

(Vargas et al., 2004)

For an article with more than five authors, replace all author's names past the first with "et al." in all in-text citations.

(Flores et al., 2008)

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