If you have as many problems as Fred in telling the difference between a book and an article in a reference list, the following information will be very useful.

Bibliographies given by your professors generally have different types of sources and are organized alphabetically, by publication date, or by subject.

Clues like the title or the publisher can help you identify the type of source that corresponds to a reference, whatever the style used:

• For a book: a single title (for the book), publisher, and ISBN (unique identifier for books)
• For a journal article: two titles (one for the article and one for the journal), the volume and/or number, page range, DOI (unique identifier for electronic articles)
• For a chapter in a book: two titles (one for the chapter and one for the book), publisher, and page range