UMP is using APA Publication Manual for its thesis writing. One of the most overlooked items is the citation style, especially when a cited work has multiple authors. If a work has two authors, it is crystal clear. How about work with more than two authors?
APA says:
When a work has three, four, or five authors, cite all authors the first time the reference occurs; in subsequent citations, include only the surname of the first author followed by et al. (not italicized and with a period after al.) and the year if it is the first citation of the reference within a paragraph.
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- Murphy, Melendez, Brown, and Glassman (2019) found… [First citation in text.]
- Murphy et al. (2019) found… [Subsequent first citation per paragraph thereafter.]
- Murphy et al. found… [Omit year from subsequent citations after nonparenthetical citation within a paragraph. Include the year in subsequent citations if first citation within a paragraph is parenthetical.]
Why all this fuss? I use Mendeley. My student uses EndNote. Zotero. RefWorks. Let the apps do their work, lah!
Yeah, the reference managers manage the citations. But we need to familiarize ourselves with the style. In this case, APA style. Or else, we might wrongly comment. Ops!
Oh, one more thing. If a citation of multiple authors is written in text, use the word and. If it is a parenthetical format, use the symbol ampersand, &. Scroll up and study the attached table. Eh, it’s a screenshot, study the attached figure.
Thanks!