I've checked out a [similar question][1], but to the best of my knowledge, it only tells me that "Name et al." is used as a singular subject since it refers to the authors, but what if the “et al..” part is followed by the citation of their article?  I found the following sentence in a journal paper:

> Gomes et al. [7] also outline a greedy method for finding feasible solutions...

So how should I use something like "et al. \[1\]" in the end? I'm really confused now.

  [1]: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/99886/is-et-al-used-as-a-singular-or-plural-subject