{"id":15366,"date":"2021-09-30T06:26:23","date_gmt":"2021-09-30T06:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/?p=15366"},"modified":"2023-04-17T14:00:27","modified_gmt":"2023-04-17T14:00:27","slug":"et-als-vs-et-al-in-academic-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/et-als-vs-et-al-in-academic-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"“Et al.’s” vs. “et al.” \u2014 Here’s the Difference"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is quite an understatement to say that many writers grapple and scuffle with punctuation and abbreviation systems like clockwork-<\/span><\/p>\n

And by extension, these two grammatical writing systems may have to be interwoven at times, thereby making matters more ill-fated than they already are.<\/span><\/p>\n

But if we bear in mind that we, humans, are hyper-creative enough to be able to think of a solution to every problem, then we are in good hands, to say the least.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, we’ll focus on breaking the barriers between the abbreviated Latin phrases “et al.’s” and “et al.” of which the difference is paradoxically trivial and critical at the same time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let’s hit the road right away.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Is there any difference between the meaning of “et al.’s” and “et al.”?<\/b><\/h2>\n

In terms of semantics or word meaning, both phrases refer to the same Latin expression “et alia,” which translates to “and others” in English. In particular, “Smith et al.’s study” translates to “Smith and others’ study,” while “Smith et al. studied” translates to “Smith and others studied.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How is “et al.’s” grammatically different from “et al.”?<\/b><\/h2>\n

“Et al.’s” is different from “et al.” because the first phrase represents the possessive noun form in English, which is also known as the genitive case in grammar studies. The second phrase “et al.” does not contain possessive markers, that is, the apostrophe and the suffix “-s.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Understanding and using “et al.’s” vs. “et al.” in utmost detail<\/b><\/h2>\n

Problems on linguistic elements continue to bother a lot of people at present, such as the grammatical nuances in <\/span>“sent me” vs. “sent to me”<\/b><\/a> and “et al.’s” vs. “et al.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“Et al.” is an abbreviated phrase that has been carried over to modern times despite the death of the Latin language, which can be explained using a functional or practical approach.<\/span><\/p>\n

Being two letters shorter than its complete version “et alia”, “et al.” is such a<\/span> handy phrase that does a superb job in shortening a lengthy list of people’s names.<\/span><\/p>\n

On top of that, “et al.” is quite a tongue-friendly phrase in the sense that is obviously a <\/span>syllable<\/b><\/a> shorter when compared to its English translation “and others”<\/span>or better yet, “and colleagues” in the context of academic writing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Logic would tell us<\/span> that the word “others” denotes more than one person or entity because it is particularly constructed with the suffix “-s” at the end, which is used as a plural marker.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hence, you’d be able to reckon that “et al.” has to be used when referring to several other people every time it appears after a person’s name, which is often the primary author of a scholarly article.<\/span><\/p>\n

Did I just say “person’s name”? I hope you still remember from your past lessons that people’s names are grammatically called<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Understanding and using “et al.’s”<\/b><\/h2>\n

Semantically, “et al.’s” simply translates to the possessive form of the phrase “and others” in English, which is used when you want to say, for example, “Smith et al.’s (1968) study on the primordial soup…”<\/span><\/p>\n

“Smith et al.’s (1968) study on the primordial soup…” can be rephrased and is simply equivalent to “The study of Smith et al. (1968) on primordial soup…”<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, “et al.’s” is semantically similar to “et al.”; however, there are morphological and syntactical differences that apply to both expressions. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the phrase “et al.’s,” the little punctuation mark you see right after the period that hangs above and before the letter “s” in “al.’s” is called an “apostrophe.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“Apostrophe” is pronounced as “uh-paa-struh-fee” in American English and “uh-po-struh-fee” in British English, with only a slight difference in the vowel sound that comes after the first letter “p.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes called a “diacritical marker,” an apostrophe is a punctuation mark that can be used when contracting verbs (“is not” to “isn’t”) or expressing plurals of individual characters (more than one “s” to “s’s”).<\/span><\/p>\n

Besides these two functions, the apostrophe can be specifically used to represent the possessive case of nouns in English, at least in the context of today’s discussion on the phrase “et al.’s.”<\/span><\/p>\n

When you hear the term “possessive,” simply think of something owned by your parents that you probably got or used without their permission, such as “mom’s car keys” or “dad’s car.” <\/span><\/p>\n

To have a clearer grasp of what I’m talking about, please look at the next example sentences below to see how possessive noun phrases work together with other sentence elements.<\/span><\/p>\n

Example:<\/span><\/p>\n

Nothing is more amazing in this world than a mother’s love<\/i><\/b>.<\/span><\/i><\/div>\n

 
\nIn the example above, the possessive noun phrase is “a mother’s love” which can be expressed more formally at length as “a love of a mother.”<\/span><\/p>\n

And, here’s one more example:<\/span><\/p>\n

Example.<\/span><\/p>\n

Martin’s hair<\/i><\/b> has been dyed blue.<\/span><\/i><\/div>\n

 
\n As you may figure, the possessive noun phrase in the sentence above is “Martin’s hair” which intra-translates to “the hair of Martin.”<\/span><\/p>\n

More technically speaking, what we have here is something called the “genitive case” in grammatical studies, which serves its purpose by signaling readers that the noun “owns” something.<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, when you say “mother’s love” or “Martin’s hair,” the apostrophe and the suffix “-s” inform you that the second words “belong to” or “are owned by” the first words.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, we can use the series of arguments and explanations above to make sense of the phrase “et al.’s” which, again, translates to “and others.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Although “et al.” or “and others” is not necessarily a noun phrase, the second word “al.” or “others” is actually a pronoun, which can still be marked possessively.<\/span><\/p>\n

The pronoun “others” or “al.” in Latin is the entity where the possessive markers “apostrophe and ‘s’” should be attached to if and when another “possessed nominal element” comes afterward.<\/span><\/p>\n

To put it simply, you can use “et al.’s” in denoting meaning that is similar to the following example, in which “the study belongs to the authors mentioned.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Example:<\/span><\/p>\n

This year, Radcliffe et al.’s study <\/i>on aerial darting has been recognized and awarded by the Ig Nobel committee.<\/span><\/i><\/div>\n

 
\nIf you are still confused with “et al.’s” practical use, here’s the complete list of the thirteen authors who conducted the study on aerial darting in the example above.<\/span><\/p>\n

List of authors:<\/span><\/p>\n

Robin W. Radcliffe, Mark Jago, Peter vdB Morkel, Estelle Morkel, Pierre du Preez, Piet Beytell, Birgit Kotting, Bakker Manuel, Jan Hendrik du Preez, Michele A. Miller, Julia Felippe, Stephen A. Parry, Robin D. Gleed<\/em><\/div>\n

 
\nIf not for the existence of the phrase “et al.’s,” you would have to write all the above-mentioned names every single time you wish to cite their work appropriately.<\/span><\/p>\n

Take note that no period should come after “et,” because “et” is already a complete word in itself that translates to “and” in English; the period must be placed after the letter “l” in “al.” instead, which is the abbreviated form of “alia.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Apart from apostrophes, commas are tricky punctuation marks that regularly go with Latin abbreviations, so you may also want to check how to use a <\/span>comma after abbreviations<\/b><\/a> for more comprehensive learning.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some other popular Latin abbreviations in the academic context include:<\/p>\n