Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
Policies & Practices
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Articles and sorting (again...)
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It is correct to skip the article, whether definite or indefinite, when sorting titles.In English, media titles are not sentences. Just as they have their own punctuation (no final period, for instance) and they have their own case rules ("Title Case") which differs drastically from sentence case, they are not treated as sentences for sorting or collation purposes.
Krazykiwi wrote: "It is correct to skip the article, whether definite or indefinite, when sorting titles.In English, media titles are not sentences. Just as they have their own punctuation (no final period, for in..."
Thank you very much, this still feels weird to me, as I would never expect to find this title on the "B"-shelf, I guess it's a good thing I already have it :-)
On the other hand, I'm very glad that the rule is unambiguous and not with a bunch of exceptions! Learned something today, thanks again
Just remind yourself you wouldn't ever expect it to have a capital B either, if it was an actual sentence :)The discombobulation will pass, once you get used to it, I promise it'll stop looking weird :)
It may be all due to English not being my first language, but I wanted to ask regarding articles, and putting them last for sorting purposes. Is there additional rules as to when this should not be done?
I have in my collection A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away, which has the indefinite article last in the "sort by" field and I think that feels really wrong. A book named "A Big Boy" or "The Big Boy" I can understand would be sorted under "B", but I would never expect to find the one in my example there.
Is there a rule that says that when the article is part of a complete sentence as in this case, that it should remain at the start? Thankful for help!