Names in Bibliographies

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There are some problems in the order of names in British English usage. This presents itself in writing Bibliographies, or Lists of References.

Foreign students know that the name that is written first in the alphabetical list should be the surname; but sometimes they make a mistake. They write the forename first, and then give the initial of the surname. So William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens become Charles, D and William, S, when all native-speakers would write (correctly) Dickens, C and Shakespeare, W. It is usually easy to avoid such an error: the title page of most books gives the author's name in the form of forename [first] followed by surname. Follow that usage, even if, at times, those from a non-English culture will be led into error. You can always ask a native speaker for advice - though even native speakers do not always know without further research.