Alphabetizing - Why

Knowing how to alphabetize can come in handy for many reasons.  Having items alphabetized makes it easier to keep track of them, especially when you have a lot of items. 

• Words in the dictionary are alphabetized; if you want to check a definition, you look the word up alphabetically.
• At the video store, movies are usually broken down into several different genres that are presented alphabetically; within each genre, movies are placed alphabetically by their titles on the shelves.
• At the CD store, music is usually broken down into several different genres that are presented alphabetically; within each genre, albums are sorted alphabetically by artist.
• When you look through the files in a filing cabinet, they’re usually ordered alphabetically by title or topic.

Alphabetizing – How

1. In order to alphabetize, you need to know the alphabet.  Refresh your memory or make a cheat sheet if you need to do a large amount of alphabetizing and find yourself struggling with the order.
2. If you have a list of words that is more than one letter long, start by grouping the words or objects according to the first letter.
   • Example:
   • zoo, computer, book, car, dog, newspaper, printer, keyboard, cartoon, juice, crab, crunch
   • book, computer, cartoon, crab, car, crunch, dog, juice, keyboard, newspaper, printer, zoo
3.  Now comes the more difficult sorting. After getting everything into piles by first letter, we move to sorting by second letter and then third letter until we finish.
   • Example 1:
   • Aardvark Able Accent Ace Axe Axel
   1. NOTE 1: the two "c"s in "accent" do not count as a single letter
   2. NOTE 2: "axel" follows "axe" because "axe" has no letter in the fourth spot and blank spots come first.
   •  Example 2:
   • Book, computer, cartoon, crab, car, crunch, dog, juice, keyboard, newspaper, printer, zoo
   • Book, car, cartoon, computer, crab, crunch, dog, juice, keyboard, newspaper, printer, zoo

1. Special Consideration #1: Proper Names
   • Issac Asimov comes before Jake Issacs, as personal names are alphabetized by last name/listed surname/family name.  Make sure that the name is listed by surname, not first name.
   • This does not apply to City/State or City/Names. This means that Paris, France goes in the "P" section, not the "F" section and Baltimore, Maryland goes in the "B" section, not the "M" section.
2. Special Consideration #2: A, An, The
   • Modern convention has it that "a, an, and the" are ignored in alphabetizing titles.
   • Example:
     • CORRECT: An Aardvark's Christmas Parade, The Indignant Aardvark, A Little Aardvark's Holiday Special
     • NOT: A Little Aardvark's Holiday Special, An Aardvark's Christmas Parade, The Indignant Aardvark
   • Why? Because many, many titles begin with a, an, the and so sorting them by these articles instead of by their first "real" word makes them much easier to find, especially if you're looking for something manually in a list!
3. Special Consideration #3: Special Characters
   • Treat ampersand (&) as its word, "and".
   • Put foreign letters in the approximate position they would hold if they existed in the English alphabet, for example, Spanish "LL" after the English "L".
   • Consult a reference from the native language of the word in question when in doubt.

• You can practice alphabetizing words here. 

• Library Shelving - Fiction
• Libraries often separate their fiction and nonfiction books. 
• The fiction books are usually shelved alphabetically by the author's last name.
• For example, a book by Stephen King would go on the shelf before a book by Spider Robinson, but after a book by Orson Scott Card (K comes before R in the alphabet, but after C). 
• Similarly, a book by Michael Crichton would go after a book by Orson Scott Card (both last names start with C, so we look at the second letter of the last name; Ca comes before Cr, because A comes before R in the alphabet).
• A book by Stephen King would go before a book by Stephen Kinge (when one word is spelled the same as another but has additional letters, the shorter word goes first, alphabetically).
• If there are two authors with the same last name, the person placing the book on the shelf then refers to the authors' first names. 
  • For example, Stephen King goes before Tabitha King (since the last names are spelled the same way, we start with the first letter of the first name, and S comes before T in the alphabet).
  • Similarly, Stephen King would go before Steven King (since the last names are spelled the same way, we start working through the letters of the first names; Step comes before Stev, because P comes before V in the alphabet)
• If a single author has more than one books, the books are often arranged alphabetically by the title of the story, though sometimes they are arranged by the original copyright date instead. 
  • Arranging by copyright date allows books in a series to be placed in the proper order on the shelf, even if they titles don't follow each other alphabetically. 
  • For example, if we had copies of Stephen King's books The Gunslinger and The Drawing of the Three, they could be organized by title (Drawing before Gunslinger, since D comes before G and we should ignore articles at the beginning of titles [articles include The, A, An]).
  • We could also organize those books by copyright date, which would put The Gunslinger first and The Drawing of the Three second (Gunslinger's original copyright date is 1982, which we find on the publication information page, and Drawing's original copyright date is 1987).  Since these particular books are part of a series, this might be a better way to shelve these books.