Several days immersed in lines upon lines of works cited entries may
cause you to wonder at some of the lesser noticed codes that rustle around at
the ends of scholarly articles. A paradox of citation is that the works
cited–a roster of references–flattens out the dimension of each
reference and orders the list arbitrarily according to the alphabet while also
downplaying a surprisingly uneven terrain of mismatched details more pocked than the
face of the moon. This contradiction is forcing me into decisions I hadn’t
expected to be so difficult.
The et al. is one example. It allows the keeper of the works to abbreviate,
to shorten a list of authors so that any source with more than three authors can
be listed alphabetically by the last name of the lead author followed by et al.
It is a note of inclusive omission. And I suppose it made greater sense in an era
when works citeds, rife with formulaic peculiarity, were typed on a typewriter.
The et al. conserves characters; it shortens the list of names, leaving off
everyone but the primary author. It is no coincidence that et al. rhymes with economic al. So what is the big deal?