October 14, 2015

Dr. Jennifer C van Velkinburgh, Filipodia Publishing

 

The following rules apply for paraphrasing with the author’s name in the sentence, such as “Garner et al. showed that…”

 

Rule #1: Only the author’s last name is necessary (“Garner”), and neither the author’s first (given) name (“Alan Garner”) nor first/middle initials (“AD Garner” or “Garner AD”) should be listed.

 

Rule #2: If the reference has only two authors, both authors’ last names should be presented (without the et al. designation, which is for more than two authors); for example, for two authors the in text citation will read “Garner and Stevenson showed that…”, and for more than two authors the in text citation will read “Garner et al. showed that…”

 

Rule #3: The citation is to be placed beside the name of the author and not at the end of the sentence, nor is it to be repeated at the end of the sentence.

The following examples are incorrect:

“Garner et al. showed that p53 suppressed transformation[53].”

“Garner et al. (2003) showed that p53 suppressed transformation (Garner et al., 2003).”

The following examples are correct:

“Garner et al.[53] showed that p53 suppressed transformation.”

“Garner et al. (2003) showed that p53 suppressed transformation.”