PERRLA/Guides/MLA 9/Journal article with 21 or more authors

How to Cite a Journal Article With 21 or More Authors in MLA 9

MLA 9 has no special rule for 21 or more authors. Any article with three or more authors gets the first author's last name and first name, a comma, and et al., and everyone else is left out. The rest is a normal journal entry: the article title in quotation marks, the journal name in italics, vol., no., the date, the pages, and the DOI. The in-text citation is the first author's last name, et al., and the page if there is one: (Tricco et al. 470).

The format

Last Name, First Name, et al. "Title of the Article." Journal Name, vol. #, no. #, Date, pp. #–# (or article #), https://doi.org/xxxx.

PERRLA MLA Experts · Updated October 29, 2026
Checked against the MLA Handbook, 9th 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 Works Cited page it prints the first author and et al. for you, so 26 names become one. You never have to count authors.

Then check two things against the article before you save. The first author's middle initial needs its period (Page, Matthew J., not Page, Matthew J), so add it in the Middle box if it's missing. And the date should be the one the article or issue shows: a search can bring in the year only, so type the month and day in too.

Adding one by hand? Choose Journal, then Journal article and A single published article. Enter the authors in the order the byline lists them, at least the first three: PERRLA counts them to decide when to print et al. In Publication Year, type the full date the issue shows, like 10/2/2018, not just the year. PERRLA handles et al., the title case, the italics, and the punctuation.

Not using PERRLA yet? Here is how to build the same works cited entry by hand.

The parts of the works cited entry

1. Author: the first one, then et al.

Start with the first author on the byline: last name, a comma, and the first name as the article prints it, with any middle initial. Then a comma and et al. That's the whole author element, whether the article has 3 authors or 300.

Page, Matthew J., et al.

Use the article's own byline to find the first author. The comma before et al. is there because the first name is turned around. Et al. isn't italic, and it keeps its period even when another punctuation mark follows.

2. No author count, no ellipsis

If you've used APA 7, forget the 20-author cutoff. APA lists up to 20 authors and switches to an ellipsis at 21. MLA never lists more than two: with three or more, et al. stands in for everyone after the first. So there's no 19th author, no ellipsis, and no last author.

Tricco, Andrea C., et al.

Two authors is the only other case. Write both names, the first turned around and the second in normal order, joined by and.

3. Article title

Put the article title in quotation marks and capitalize it in title case, even though medical journals print titles in sentence case. Abbreviations keep their capitals, so PRISMA-ScR stays PRISMA-ScR. The period goes inside the closing quotation mark.

"PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR): Checklist and Explanation."

4. Journal, volume, and issue

The journal is the container: its name in italics, then vol. and the volume number, then no. and the issue number, each followed by a comma.

Annals of Internal Medicine, vol. 169, no. 7,

Some articles, like these BMJ papers, are published with a volume number and no issue number. Write vol. alone and go straight to the date.

BMJ, vol. 372,

5. Date

Give the date as fully as the journal gives it, day first, with months longer than four letters abbreviated (Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec.). Annals of Internal Medicine dates each issue to the day.

2 Oct. 2018,

Many articles go online weeks before they appear in an issue. Once the article is in an issue, use the issue's date, not the online date.

6. Pages or article number

Write pp. before a page range. Past 99, the second number keeps only its last two digits unless more are needed.

pp. 467–73,

BMJ gives each article a number (n71) instead of page numbers. Give it where the page range would go: the word article, in lowercase, and the number.

article n71,

7. DOI

End with the DOI as a full https://doi.org/ link, followed by a period.

https://doi.org/10.7326/M18-0850.

Examples

An article with 26 authors

The PRISMA 2020 statement, the reporting guideline most systematic reviews follow, published in BMJ on 29 March 2021. It has 26 authors, and MLA names only the first, Matthew J. Page. BMJ articles have no page numbers, so the in-text citation is the name alone.

  • In-text citation(Page et al.)
  • Narrative citationPage et al. explain that …

An article with 28 authors and page numbers

The PRISMA extension for scoping reviews, in the 2 October 2018 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. It went online on 4 September, but the entry uses the issue's date. Its 28 authors shrink to Andrea C. Tricco and et al., and a quotation from page 470 puts the page in the citation.

  • In-text citation(Tricco et al. 470)
  • Narrative citationAs Tricco et al. explain, … (470).

Two articles with the same first author

The PRISMA 2020 explanation and elaboration paper came out the same day, in the same BMJ volume, with Matthew J. Page first again and the other 25 authors in a different order. Both entries start Page, Matthew J., et al. Cited on its own, it's (Page et al.), as shown below. If your paper cites both PRISMA 2020 papers, each in-text citation also needs a short title, so see the in-text section.

  • In-text citation(Page et al.)
  • Narrative citationIn "PRISMA 2020 Explanation and Elaboration," Page et al. show …

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 and et al., plus the page number when the article has pages. No comma goes between et al. and the page.

  • No page numbers: (Page et al.)
  • With a page: (Tricco et al. 470)
  • Name in your sentence: put the page alone in parentheses at the end of the sentence: As Tricco et al. explain, … (470). In your sentence, "Tricco and colleagues" works too.

Two works with the same first author. The PRISMA 2020 statement and its explanation and elaboration paper both shorten to (Page et al.). MLA's fix is to add a short title in quotation marks after a comma, using the first noun of each title and the words before it, minus an opening The: (Page et al., "PRISMA 2020 Statement") and (Page et al., "PRISMA 2020 Explanation"). In the Works Cited list, each entry still starts with Page, Matthew J., et al. Don't swap the second one for three hyphens: that shortcut is only for works by exactly the same authors in the same order.

Common mistakes

  • Page, Matthew J., Joanne E. McKenzie, Patrick M. Bossuyt, [authors 4 to 18], Steve McDonald, . . . David Moher.Page, Matthew J., et al.That's the APA 7 pattern for 21 or more authors. MLA names only the first author and uses et al. for the rest.
  • Page, M. J., et al.Page, Matthew J., et al.MLA writes the first author's first name in full, the way the article prints it. Initials alone are APA style.
  • Page, Matthew J. et al.Page, Matthew J., et al.In the Works Cited entry, a comma comes before et al., because the first author's name is turned around.
  • (Page et al., 2021)(Page et al.)That's APA. MLA in-text citations never take the year. Give a page number only when the article has pages.
  • (Tricco et al., 470)(Tricco et al. 470)MLA puts no comma between the author and the page number, et al. or not.

Quick checklist

  • Three or more authors: the first author, a comma, and et al.
  • No author count, no ellipsis, no last author
  • First author's full first name and middle initial, with its period
  • Article title in quotation marks and title case
  • Journal in italics, vol., no., the issue's date, pp.
  • In text: (First Author et al. page), with a short title if two entries match

Questions students ask

How many authors do you list in MLA 9?

One or two. With one or two authors, write their names. With three or more, write the first author and et al. That covers an article with 21 authors, 28 authors, or a few hundred.

Does MLA have a 20-author rule like APA?

No. The 20-author limit and the ellipsis are APA 7 rules. MLA switches to et al. at three authors and never lists more than the first one after that.

Do I use et al. in the Works Cited list too?

Yes. Unlike APA, MLA uses et al. in both places: after the first author's name in the Works Cited entry (Page, Matthew J., et al.) and in the in-text citation (Page et al.).

What if the first author is a group, like a study consortium?

Write the group's name the way the article gives it. If more authors follow it, add et al. with no comma, because a group's name isn't turned around. In the text, use the group's name, or its first few words if it's long, and the same et al.

How do I tell apart two articles that both shorten to the same et al. citation?

Add a short version of each title, in quotation marks, after a comma: (Page et al., "PRISMA 2020 Statement"). Use the title's first noun and the words before it, without an opening A, An, or The.

Do I have to type all the authors into PERRLA?

Not if you look the article up by its DOI or PubMed ID: PERRLA brings in every author and prints the first one and et al. on your Works Cited page. Adding it by hand? Enter the authors in byline order, at least the first three, so PERRLA knows to use et al.

Rules checked against the MLA Handbook (9th ed.), chapters 5 and 6 (the author element and et al., the core elements and containers, dates, page ranges, and in-text citations), and the MLA Style Center's answers on works by the same lead author with different coauthors, commas and italics with et al., shortening titles to the first noun, and early-access articles (once an article is in an issue, give the issue's date). Example sources are the ones verified for the APA 7 page, re-checked on October 29, 2026, against PubMed (PMIDs 33782057, 30178033, and 33781993) and Crossref: author order, the first author's full name, the title, the volume, the issue, the pages or article number, the issue or publication date, and the DOI.

PERRLA brings in every author from the DOI and prints the first one and et al. on your Works Cited page.

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