Writing Centre Learning Guide
The words ‘a’, ‘an’ and ‘the’, known as articles, present problems for most speakers
of English as an additional language. This is not surprising, since there is no
equivalent construction in many languages, and those languages that do have
articles do not necessarily use them in the same way as English.
Introduction
It is often difficult to decide whether an English noun needs an article before it, and, if so, which
article (a/an/the) to use. The main things to consider when choosing an article are whether or not
the noun is countable, and whether it is definite. Countability means that the noun can be made
plural, e.g. book/books. This is something you can check in a learner’s dictionary of English.
Whether a noun is definite or indefinite depends on whether you and your reader or listener both
know what you are referring to. The following pages give you some guidelines on what makes a
noun countable and/or definite. Much of the information is based on the work of Master (1986) and
Swales and Feak (1994).
When you have to decide whether to use an article, and which article to use, consider this chart:
Choosing the right article
Is the noun singular and countable? Is the noun plural or uncountable?
Yes Yes
Is it definite? Is it definite?
yes no yes no
the a/an the no article
For example:
I bought a book – book is a singular, countable noun; therefore it has to have an article.
Your reader does not know which book you are referring to, therefore it is ‘indefinite’.
The book I bought is interesting – book is again a singular, countable noun; therefore it has
to have an article. In this case, we know which book you are referring to (the book you
bought), so it takes a definite article. (More details on the definite article are given
below.)
I like the books you gave me – books is a plural noun. It is used in a definite sense (we
know which books – the books you gave me), so it takes a definite article.