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Q&A Order of references

Suppose I have the following references to literature: Miller, H. (1999): … Referred to as: Miller (1999) Miller, F., & Smith, J. (2002): … Referred to as...

1 answer  ·  posted 11y ago by Burgmeister‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T03:09:58Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/9260
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Burgmeister‭ · 2019-12-08T03:09:58Z (almost 5 years ago)
Suppose I have the following references to literature:

- Miller, H. (1999): … Referred to as: Miller (1999)
- Miller, F., & Smith, J. (2002): … Referred to as: Miller & Smith (2002)
- Miller, A., & Smith, J. (2003): … Referred to as: Miller & Smith (2003)
- Miller, B., Smith, J., & Jones, K. (2001): … Referred to as: Miller et al. (2001)
- Miller, B., Jones, K., & Smith, J. (2004): … Referred to as: Miller et al. (2004)

How to sort those entries?

“Logic” (?) says to first use

- Miller, A., & Smith, J. (2003): … Referred to as: Miller & Smith (2003)

because all authors are “Millers” but Arthur’s given name begins with the first letter of the alphabet.

- Miller, B., Jones, K., & Smith, J. (2004): … Referred to as: Miller et al. (2004)

would follow, because “B” comes after “A” and “Jones” before “Smith”,

- Miller, B., Smith, J., & Jones, K. (2001): … Referred to as: Miller et al. (2001)
- Miller, F., & Smith, J. (2002): … Referred to as: Miller & Smith (2002)

and

- Miller, H. (1999): … Referred to as: Miller (1999)

would follow.

On the other hand, practically would sort as follows:

- Miller, H. (1999): … Referred to as: Miller (1999)

because this is a “one author reference”.

- Miller, F., & Smith, J. (2002): … Referred to as: Miller & Smith (2002)

Before

- Miller, A., & Smith, J. (2003): … Referred to as: Miller & Smith (2003)

Because these are two-author references and “Miller & Smith (2002)” is chronologically before “Miller & Smith (2003)”. From the reference “Miller & Smith” the given names are not known to the reader (before looking in the references), thus sorting after the known year would make sense. Therefore also

- Miller, B., Smith, J., & Jones, K. (2001): … Referred to as: Miller et al. (2001)

would go before

- Miller, B., Jones, K., & Smith, J. (2004): … Referred to as: Miller et al. (2004)

Which sorting order is “better”/more common? Or is there another sort of ordering which makes more sense?!

There is no style guide, required format, standard or something like that for the planned publication.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2013-10-29T19:07:52Z (about 11 years ago)
Original score: 1