To a Frenchman, everything is a platitude that is not a paradox. The Bramleighs Of Bishop's Folly Charles James Lever A platitude that nobody has expressed and that nobody has acted on is a great truth. The Ghost in the White House Gerald Stanley Lee It is tolerated to-day for no other reason than that it has cornered the platitude market.
It is short for the Latin et alii ('and others'), which means and others.. For example, the phrase IBM, Microsoft, HP, et al. means IBM, Microsoft, HP and others or Carrâ¦uthers et al.- Carruthers and others.
2. Use et al. in academic writing to abbreviate a list of three or more authors after the first citation. Attribute the first author and then write et al. to denote that there are more authors in the works cited list. 1  For example, âMonroe et al., 2013.â Or âAccording to Monroe et al., the study foundâ¦â. 2  Include a list of all the authors in the first citation, unless the sources has six or more authors.