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When you talk about a collection of snippets and facts for an article, do you say "material" or "materials"?

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You would use "material" (without the "S").

According to Dictionary.com:

materials

The articles or apparatus needed to make or do something.

material

A group of ideas, facts, data, etc. that may provide the basis for or be incorporated into some integrated work.

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  • Hm. I don't really understand what is distinction between these 2 cases.
    – user626528
    May 20, 2015 at 6:08
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    Used in this sense material is an uncountable noun. e.g. I have all the material I need to write the article. Used in other senses material is countable. e.g. It is astonishing what they were able to build with the limited materials they had available
    – WS2
    May 20, 2015 at 7:53
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    Also the def given for materials refers to concrete objects, whereas the def given for material refers to abstract ideas. So, I suppose, if you were gathering both types, you could rightly say that you had the material AND the materials ready. But I wouldn't recommend it; the listener might not catch your meaning.
    – Brian Hitchcock
    May 20, 2015 at 8:44

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