Leading articles

Disclaimer: This article is about rules. Its contents are not authoritative. Please consult official rules for up-to-date information.

A leading article is a grammatical article (e.g. "the", "a", or "an") that comes at the beginning of a work's title. Under both ACF and NAQT rules, the omission of a single leading article from an otherwise correct title does not render an answer incorrect; however, there are other differences between their rules.

This is governed by ACF gameplay rule 7A and by NAQT correctness guideline C4b.

Edge cases

Extraneous articles

If a work does not have a leading article, then adding an article that is not present in the title of the work will render an answer incorrect under ACF rules. In NAQT rules, adding an extraneous leading article will not invalidate a response unless it introduces ambiguity with another work which uses that article.

Incorrect articles

In both ACF and NAQT rules, providing the wrong leading article for a work will render an answer incorrect.

Examples

The most famous application of these rules involves H. G. Wells's The Invisible Man and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.

Answer wanted	Answer given	Correct in NAQT?	Correct in ACF?
"Invisible Man" (by Ralph Ellison)	"Invisible Man"	Yes This is the exact title of the work.	Yes This is the exact title of the work.
	"The Invisible Man"	No The extraneous leading article "the" has created ambiguity between this work and another, rendering it incorrect.	No The addition of an extraneous leading article has rendered the answer incorrect.
	"An Invisible Man"	Yes The extraneous leading article "an" has not created ambiguity and is thus allowed.	No The addition of an extraneous leading article has rendered the answer incorrect.
"The Invisible Man" (by H. G. Wells)	"Invisible Man"	Yes Omitting the single leading article does not affect the correctness of this otherwise correct answer.	Yes Omitting the single leading article does not affect the correctness of this otherwise correct answer.
	"The Invisible Man"	Yes This is the exact title of the work.	Yes This is the exact title of the work.
	"An Invisible Man"	No The leading article "an" is not correct.	No The leading article "an" is not correct.

Notice that the only difference in correctness in these situations is when an extraneous leading article which does not introduce ambiguity is added to a work that otherwise does not have one; in this situation, NAQT considers the answer correct while ACF considers the answer incorrect.