Highlight: Include definite and indefinite articles in your documentation.
Articles modify nouns. The is a definite article, and is used to define specific or particular nouns.
A and an are indefinite articles, and are used to define non-specific or non-particular nouns.
For example, ‘I watched the video.’ Here, the particular video is being watched.
‘I watched a video.’ Here, it may be any video that is being watched.
Including articles in your writing is essential for overall simplicity of language and ease of understanding.
Examples of articles
- A document
- An hour
- A link
- A project
- An open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. project
- An issue
- A new issue
Using a or an depends on the pronunciation of the succeeding word. Basically, a is used before any consonant sound, and an is used before any vowel sound.
The article (a or an) that goes along with an abbreviation depends on whether the term is pronounced like an acronym or an initialism. For example, an APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways., an IDE, a URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org, a CMS are the articles that go with these terms.
For more information, see Abbreviations.
