Articles are words that combine with a noun to indicate the degree of definiteness (specificity) of the reference being made by the noun. The articles in English are the definite article the and the indefinite articles a and an (and sometimes some). Use of the definite article implies that the speaker assumes the listener knows the identity of the noun's referent (because it is obvious, because it is common knowledge, or because it was mentioned in the same sentence or an earlier sentence). Use of an indefinite article implies that the speaker assumes the listener does not know the identity of the referent.

In English, nouns must in most cases be preceded by an article that specifies the presence or absence of definiteness of the noun. The definite article is the in all cases other than generic references, which use the zero article (i.e., the absence of an article), while indefiniteness is expressed with a or an for singular nouns or the zero article for plural or non-count nouns.

The cells in the table can be exemplified as follows:

Jill Stein (born 1950) is an American physician and candidate for President of the United States in 2012 with the Green Party of the United States. Stein was a candidate for Governor of Massachusetts in the 2002 and the 2010 gubernatorial elections. Stein is a resident of Lexington, Massachusetts and a 1979 graduate of Harvard Medical School. She serves on the boards of Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility and MassVoters for Fair Elections, and has been active with the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities.

In October 2011, Stein announced her candidacy for the presidential nomination of the Green Party in the 2012 general election.

Stein advocates for the creation of a "Green New Deal", the objective of which would be to employ "every American willing and able to work" to address "climate change...[and the] converging water, soil, fisheries, forest, and fossil fuel crises" by working towards "sustainable energy, transportation and production infrastructure: clean renewable energy generation, energy efficiency, intra-city mass transit and inter-city railroads, “complete streets” that safely encourage bike and pedestrian traffic, regional food systems based on sustainable organic agriculture, and clean manufacturing of the goods needed to support this sustainable economy". The initial cost of the Green New Deal would be funded by various mechanisms, including "taxing Wall Street speculation, off shore tax havens, millionaires and multimillion dollar estates" as well as a 30% reduction in the U.S. military budget. She cites a study of the economic effects of the 1930s New Deal projects by Dr. Phillip Harvey, Professor of Law & Economics at Rutgers School of Law as academic evidence for the Green New Deal.