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Should "et al." be written in italics, or not?

My impression was that it was, but http://www.ece.ucdavis.edu/~jowens/commonerrors.html and http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/02/et-al-when-and-how.html says it should not be italicised, but I previously thought it should be, as does this side-remark in this answer.

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  • Yes it is not necessary to italicize it.
    – user73373
    Jun 24, 2014 at 7:36
  • It is often written in italics (as are other Latin expressions), but I think that this is a matter of style. In science, it clearly depends on the journal. Note that for some reason, "e.g." and "i.e." are not printed in italics even in journals that use italics for "et al.".
    – painfulenglish
    Jun 24, 2014 at 8:12
  • Relat5ed (possible dupe): english.stackexchange.com/q/1289/8019.
    – Tim Lymington
    Jun 24, 2014 at 11:50
  • @TimLymington the accepted answer of that question has only a single sentence on italicisation of foreign words.
    – Golden Cuy
    Jun 25, 2014 at 1:56

1 Answer 1

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Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed. (p.365) says that commonly used Latin words and abbreviations should not be italicized, and lists "et al." as an example.

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  • 1
    Any idea about other style guides, whether they recommend the same. or the contrary? Would be interesting to get a broader overview...
    – codeling
    May 23, 2020 at 18:40

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