Fertilizer and other agricultural waste pouring into the Gulf of Mexico creates a larger and larger patch of lifeless ocean each year. Finally, the EPA has a plan of attack. Is it enough?
The abbreviation et al. means and others. It is most often used when a work you are citing in your paper has multiple authors. When a work has two authors, cite both names every time the reference occurs in the text.
For example, in a bibliography, rather than listing five authors of a scientific paper, we can list the first author's name and then use et al. for the remaining four authors. Et al. always refers to people--not things. Doug was suggesting the use of et al. to avoid greeting a list of people.