Writing a scholarly article or book is a big project. It takes a lot of effort and, often, a lot of minds. It's common to find sources with multiple authors...and the order in which they're listed may not make sense at first. But the rule is fairly simple: they are listed in order of the time and effort that they put into the project (data collection, analysis, writing, etc.). The author who contributed the most is listed first, the one who contributed the second most is listed second, and so on. The authors will have worked this out between themselves and agreed upon the order before publication.
So, when you're creating a citation for a multi-author source, don't be tempted to reorganize them alphabetically. It's important to list authors in the same order that you find them on the title page of the article or book - it's part of giving credit to those who worked the hardest!
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