Et al.

“Et al.” is an abbreviated form of the Latin phrase “et alia,” which means “and others” in English. This term is commonly used in academic and scholarly writing, as well as in legal documents, to refer to additional authors or contributors beyond the first one mentioned. When citing a source with multiple authors, you can mention the first author’s name and then use “et al.” to indicate that there are other authors without explicitly naming them all.

For example:
Smith, Jones, et al. (2005) conducted a comprehensive study on the topic.
In this example, “et al.” indicates that there are other authors besides Smith and Jones, but their names are not specifically mentioned in the citation.