In an APA reference list, each citation is listed alphabetically by the author's last name (surname). APA uses a letter-by-letter arrangement, thus A comes before B, and so on. When there are many writers with the same last name, you use the first and middle initials. For example, Brown JB may be listed as Johnson, James Andrew.
It is important to note that publishers may choose how they format their references lists, so not all publications follow the same rules. The Chicago Manual of Style is more flexible in this regard.
In general, yes, the citations should be arranged alphabetically by the author's last name. However, if two authors have the same last name but different first names, they would be cited individually using their full names. For example, Smith John and Jones Frank would be cited as Smith John and Jones Frank respectively.
Furthermore, when there are multiple works by one author, such as a series of books by Jane Doe, the citations should be listed according to the date published or reported. For example, if her first book was published in 1990 and her latest in 1995, then the citations for these two works could be found under 1990 and 1995 respectively.
Finally, some authors include their institution or organization when citing others' work. If this is the case, the citation should come after the author's name and before the year published.
In APA, your reference list is always organized alphabetically by the first item of information that differs. If you have more than one author, look at the first author for each book you're mentioning. If the first and second authors are the same, you'd go by the third author... and so on. This means that as long as you list all the books you cite, then you don't need to worry about being strict about an exact alphabetical order.
If you want to be sure, you can also do a full alphabetical organization of your bibliography. That way, if someone wants to find out more about a specific author or book, they'll be able to do so easily.
Finally, remember that you should include only books that are available through commercial publishers or from online sources. Review journals are fine, but they aren't considered "primary" sources. They're usually published once a year, and they tend to focus on different topics than books that appear regularly.
Here's an example of a bibliography with some random items included:
American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/
APA Style Guide. (2015). In Apastyle.
If the same author appears on several books, put him or her down first on each one.
So if you were to reference three books by John Doe, your bibliography would look like this: "Doe, J." "Doe, J. R." and "Doe, J. K."
It's important to note that when you list multiple works by the same author, they must all be listed in order of publication. So if John Doe published a book in 1999 and another book in 2015, you would list them both with "Doe, J." Even if they deal with different subjects, they still count as only one author because they were published within five years of each other.
If you were to list four books by John Doe, your bibliography would look like this: "Doe, J." "Doe, J. R." "Doe, J. K." and "Doe, J. D."
Hi, Alex. If the same author appears on several books, then list them all with that author as first author.
As for multiple sources using the same data, it's okay to list them out of order as long as you give proper credit. For example, if you were studying cities in America and found out that New York and Chicago also ranked high on lists of most dangerous cities, you could list them in order of danger (or not) and still follow the rule that references are listed in an alphabetical order by their first details.
Hope this helps!
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