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Metro State Writing Center

Drafted fall 2023

What are articles?

Articles are used to describe people, places, things or ideas in terms of how specific, how many, or how new to a piece the noun may be.

  • For example: the people, a place, the things, an idea

Adjectives go between an article and a noun.

  • For example: the purple people, a beautiful place, the three things, an amazing idea
How specific are they?

The:

Using this word means the noun is directly what you wish to indicate or emphasize; the noun is specific.

  • For example: the pizza, the Nobel Prize, the best example, the only one

A or An:

Use these words for singular and group nouns.

Use the word ‘a’ when the next word begins with a consonant sound:

  • a message, a hat, a flock of birds
  • a unicycle, a European person, a usual place

Use the word ‘an’ when the next word begins with a vowel sound:

  • an opportunity, an egg, an interesting situation
  • an hour, an honor, an M&M
Is it countable?

Nouns that are countable can use a or an: a hat, an egg, etc. If you cannot count it, use the: the energy, the progress, the weather, etc.

Should I always use an article?

No, it is better not to use an article at all than to use one incorrectly. A reader can get the gist of a sentence missing an article but may be misled by an incorrect article. Here is a passage with the articles removed:

People have been weaving silk into fabric for at least 5,000 years. ___ delicate material, made from ___ threads silkworms excrete to create their cocoons, has been used for everything from ___ robes of Byzantine emperors to ___ parachutes of World War II paratroopers. In ancient China, ___ birthplace of silk, it became luxury paper, ___medium for paintings, and even ___ form of currency. … To ___ outsider, silk is simply soft and pretty. To historians, silk artifacts reflect ___ trade and social customs of ___ age long gone. (Joseph Strong, Smithsonian, Feb 2012)

Reading this without the articles, someone can still understand Strong’s writing, although not as precisely. Try placing different articles in the blanks to see how they affect meaning, for example:

  • The third sentence is actually, “the birthplace of silk,” which confirms China and nowhere else is the birthplace.
  • If it read as “a birthplace of silk,” then a reader may mistakenly think that there are other countries where silk was also developed 5,000 years ago.