How to decipher and use your reading list

This citation doesn't seem right

Writers sometimes make mistakes on bibliographic lists. Common mistakes include:

• recording a different publishing date to the copy of the book you find in the library (may be a different printing)
• not updating the edition number - check which one you should be using
• misspelling the name of an author or title (try searching on different terms)

Sometimes they assume that you will know what a shortened reference means. For instance:

• they might list only the author of a book because they listed the full citation earlier in the list or in other notes
• some writers use the standard abbreviations of journal titles, or in their citations