PERRLA/Guides/APA 7/Journal article with 21 or more authors

How to Cite a Journal Article With 21 or More Authors in APA 7

For a journal article with 21 or more authors, APA 7 lists the first 19 authors, then an ellipsis, then the final author's name, with no ampersand. Every author in between is left out. The rest of the reference is a normal journal article reference, and the in-text citation is the first author and et al.: (Page et al., 2021).

The format

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., [authors 3 to 18], Author, S. S., . . . Author, Z. Z. (Year). Title of the article. Journal Name, Volume(Issue), page–page. https://doi.org/xxxx

PERRLA APA Experts · Updated October 21, 2026
Checked against the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition. Every example is formatted by PERRLA's reference engine.

First, the easy way: PERRLA

Paste the article's DOI or PubMed ID into PERRLA's reference search. PERRLA brings in the full author list, and on your references page it prints the first 19 authors, the ellipsis, and the last author for you. You never have to count to 19.

Check the rest of the reference against the article before you save. The journal name should be the one the article shows (BMJ, not BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.)), the volume and issue should be numbers, an online article number like n71 belongs in the article number box, not the pages box, so PERRLA prints Article n71, and an abbreviation in the title keeps its capitals (PRISMA-ScR).

Adding one by hand? Choose Journal, then Journal Article, then the kind A single published article, and enter every author in the order the article lists them, all the way to the last one. PERRLA needs the full list to pick out the 19th and the final author. If your paper cites two articles that would both shorten to the same et al. citation, PERRLA adds the names that tell them apart.

Not using PERRLA yet? Here is how to build the same reference by hand.

The parts of the reference

1. The first 19 authors

Write the first 19 authors the usual way: last name, comma, initials, with commas between them. There's no ampersand anywhere in a list of 21 or more.

Page, M. J., McKenzie, J. E., Bossuyt, P. M., [authors 4 to 18], McDonald, S.,

Count from the byline on the article itself, not from a database record. Databases sometimes cut a long list short or drop the last author.

2. The ellipsis

After the 19th author's comma, add an ellipsis. APA shows it as three periods with spaces between them, followed by a space.

McDonald, S., . . . Moher, D.

The ellipsis replaces every author from the 20th to the second to last. With 26 authors, that's six names left out.

3. The final author

End the author list with the last author on the byline, then the period that closes the author element. The last author is often the senior author on the study.

. . . Moher, D. (2021).

If the last name on the byline is a group, like a study consortium, write the group's name there in full.

4. Exactly 20 authors

Twenty authors is the most APA lists in full. With 20, write every name and put an ampersand before the last one. The ellipsis starts at 21.

Sjetne, I. S., Smith, H. L., & Kutney-Lee, A. (2012).

5. The rest of the reference

After the authors, it's a regular journal article reference: the year, the article title in sentence case, the journal and volume in italics, the issue, the page range or article number, and the DOI.

(2021). The PRISMA 2020 statement: An updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ, 372, Article n71. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n71

Examples

The PRISMA 2020 statement (26 authors)

The reporting guideline most systematic reviews follow, published in BMJ in 2021. It has 26 authors, so the reference lists the first 19, then the ellipsis, then David Moher. BMJ uses article numbers, so n71 takes the place of pages.

  • Parenthetical citation(Page et al., 2021)
  • Narrative citationPage et al. (2021)

The PRISMA-ScR extension for scoping reviews (28 authors)

The checklist for scoping reviews, published in Annals of Internal Medicine in 2018, with 28 authors and a regular page range. Copy each name from the byline: O’Brien keeps its apostrophe, and Micah D. J. Peters has two middle initials. Soares-Weiser and Tunçalp come after the 19th author, Chantelle Garritty, so the ellipsis replaces them.

  • Parenthetical citation(Tricco et al., 2018, p. 470)
  • Narrative citationTricco et al. (2018, p. 470)

An article with exactly 20 authors

Linda Aiken's 2012 study of nurses and patients in 12 countries, in BMJ. With exactly 20 authors, every name goes in the reference, with an ampersand before the last. No ellipsis.

  • Parenthetical citation(Aiken et al., 2012)
  • Narrative citationAiken et al. (2012)

Two articles with the same first author and year

The PRISMA 2020 explanation and elaboration paper came out alongside the statement, in the same BMJ volume, with the same 26 people in a different order. Its last author is Joanne McKenzie, and David Moher is second. In the reference list, the different last author keeps the two references apart. Cited on its own, it's Page et al. (2021), as shown below. If your paper cites both PRISMA 2020 papers, both would shorten to Page et al., 2021, so see the in-text section for the fix.

  • Parenthetical citation(Page et al., 2021)
  • Narrative citationPage et al. (2021)

In-text citations

In the text, an article with 21 or more authors is cited like any work with three or more: the first author's last name, et al., and the year, starting with the very first citation.

  • Parenthetical: (Page et al., 2021)
  • Narrative: Page et al. (2021) updated the PRISMA checklist to 27 items.
  • With a page: (Tricco et al., 2018, p. 470) or Tricco et al. (2018, p. 470)

When two et al. citations look the same. The PRISMA 2020 statement and its explanation and elaboration paper are both Page et al., 2021, but their author lists differ. APA's fix is to write out as many names as it takes to tell them apart, then et al.: (Page, McKenzie, et al., 2021) for the statement and (Page, Moher, et al., 2021) for the explanation and elaboration paper. A narrative citation keeps the same names, with no and before et al.: Page, McKenzie, et al. (2021). PERRLA makes this change in your paper automatically when both references are on your references page.

Common mistakes

  • Page, M. J., McKenzie, J. E., Bossuyt, P. M., et al. (2021).Page, M. J., McKenzie, J. E., [authors 3 to 18], McDonald, S., . . . Moher, D. (2021).APA never uses et al. in a reference list entry, only in the text. Some generators shorten long lists this way anyway. APA 7 keeps the first 19 authors and the last.
  • [first 19 authors], . . . & Moher, D. (2021).[first 19 authors], . . . Moher, D. (2021).The ellipsis takes the place of the ampersand. A list of 21 or more has no ampersand at all.
  • [first 20 authors], . . . Moher, D. (2021).[first 19 authors], . . . Moher, D. (2021).It's 19 names before the ellipsis, not 20, so the full list including the last author is 20 names long.
  • Aiken, L. H., Sermeus, W., [authors 3 to 18], Smith, H. L., . . . Kutney-Lee, A. (2012).Aiken, L. H., Sermeus, W., [authors 3 to 18], Smith, H. L., & Kutney-Lee, A. (2012).The ellipsis is for 21 or more. With exactly 20 authors, every name is listed, with an ampersand before the last.
  • (Page, McKenzie, Bossuyt, Boutron, Hoffmann, & Mulrow, 2021)(Page et al., 2021)In the text, three or more authors always shorten to the first author and et al. Writing out extra names is only for telling two otherwise identical citations apart.

Quick checklist

  • Count the authors on the article's byline, not a database record
  • 20 or fewer: list them all, with an ampersand before the last
  • 21 or more: the first 19, a comma, an ellipsis, then the last author
  • No ampersand and no et al. in the reference
  • In text: first author and et al. from the first citation
  • Two citations that shorten the same: add names until they differ

Questions students ask

How many authors do you list in an APA 7 reference?

Up to 20, all of them. With 21 or more, list the first 19, then an ellipsis, then the last author. APA 6 listed only up to seven and shortened longer lists to the first six, an ellipsis, and the last author, so older guides still show that version.

Do I use et al. in the reference list?

No. In APA 7, et al. appears only in in-text citations. The reference always names at least the first 19 authors and the last one.

How do I cite an article with 21 or more authors in the text?

Exactly like any work with three or more authors: the first author's last name, et al., and the year, such as (Page et al., 2021) or Page et al. (2021). Use et al. from the very first time you cite it.

What does the ellipsis look like?

APA shows it as three periods with spaces between them, . . ., after the comma that follows the 19th author, and then a space before the last author's name.

What if the last author is a group, like a consortium?

Write the group's name in full in the last author's spot, after the ellipsis. If a paper is credited only to a group, with no individual byline, the group is the author and you cite it by its name.

Do I have to type all the authors into PERRLA?

Only if you add the reference by hand, and only because PERRLA needs the whole list to find the 19th and the last author. If you look the article up by its DOI or PubMed ID, PERRLA brings in every author and shortens the list on your references page for you.

Rules checked against the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.), Sections 8.17, 8.18, 9.8, 9.27, and 10.1, and the APA Style website's guidance on author names in references. Example sources verified against PubMed, PubMed Central, and each DOI, author by author.

PERRLA brings in every author from the DOI and shortens the list to the first 19 and the last for you, ellipsis included.

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