Tips for distinguishing between a book and an article - The art of mastering a reference list

[Voice-over]
It’s Thursday morning. Fred’s not at the top of his game.
Today, it’s the day after the day before.

So Fred’s not exactly prepared to grasp the subtleties of the reference list he has to dissect.

Fred took it upon himself to ask his roommate for a hand.

[Dialogues] 

Anna: You’re suffering?/ Ok, I’ll explain./  But you have to vacuum at home./ It’s a real pigsty.
Ok, first, you have to know that a reference list gathers a wide variety of…/ chapters, conference papers…/ audio, image…/ hey, you got it?

[Voice-over]
For the layman or someone a bit lethargic like you are, Fred, a reference list can seem as impenetrable as a Latin grammar book. The undistinguished eye often has trouble seeing how to decode this mass of sources. Let’s take a closer look.

First, as Anna explained, a reference list gathers a wide variety of types of sources.
It’s possible to organize a reference list in several different ways:
•	by alphabetical order (by author or title)
•	by publication date (chronological or reverse)
•	by subject (to organize and subdivide a reference list with a large number of sources)


In fact, each discipline and each professor chooses the system best adapted to the subject. There are also different models of bibliographies, each with their own style.

Let’s go back to the reference list example that Fred has. To get oriented, you have to recognize the visual clues that allow you to distinguish between types of sources.

As for you, how do you do it? Do you have any tips to tell apart a journal article from a book in the list of sources recommended by a professor for a course?

In the real world, how do we do it? Here are three examples:
What differences do you see?
•	In the first example, there is only one title. Therefore, it’s a book.
•	In this example, there is a volume, a journal title, and page numbers. Therefore, this one is an article.
•	In the last example, there is the word “in,” the title of a work, and page numbers. Therefore, this one is a book chapter.
Clues like a title or an editor can help you differentiate between references, whatever the style used: APA, Chicago or Vancouver.

In the end, recognizing the types of sources in a reference list will help you avoid unwanted surprises and understand what you might find.