When to add "the" before noun

E.g:

"Reference of the actor who is granted access" vs "The reference of the actor who is granted access"?

Should we put "The" at the beginning of the sentence?

Solution 1:

All singular countable nouns require to be qualified by a determiner, e.g. the; a/an; any; his/her/my, etc; that; this; a genitive noun, etc.

Uncountable nouns and plural nouns may or may not be qualified by a determiner, although obviously, "a/an" cannot be used with (a) uncountable nouns (unless they have a partitive qualifier) (b) plural nouns

In this context, reference is a singular countable noun.

Solution 2:

The noun "reference" can be treated as both countable and uncountable (look up "reference" in any online dictionary). Here's an example from a book on linguistics:

"...In other functions they are replaced by fuller forms "someone/somebody" and "anyone/anybody" for HUMAN REFERENCE, "something" and "anything" for NON-HUMAN REFERENCE".

In the above example you might use the indefinite article but don't have to. If it was "a human reference", the sentence would be just as fine. As I see it, many deverbal nouns like "reference" (which originated from the verb "to refer") can be looked at either as a process (no indefinite article) or an event (the indefinite article required).