I gave him a paper to read.
I am really uneasy about this sentence.
The thing which makes me upset, is "a paper" in this sentence.
I had read in Wren & Martin long ago. A paper is wrong. A piece or sheet of paper is right, I think here the word "paper" is differently used. Maybe that's another thing. Well, we have also read in our previous classes that we cannot use indefinite articles with "uncountable nouns". Therefore, this thing does confuse me.
Best Answer
From the context, I take the paper as a piece of writing usually on an academic or official subject as in
Or it can refer to a piece of writing that is done for a course at a school. As in
In either sense as you can infer from the examples, paper is a count noun.
Paper is noncount when it refers to the material that is used in the form of thin sheets for writing or printing on, wrapping things, etc as in