Subject-Verb Agreement Made Easy: Rules, Exceptions, and Pro Tips

The neighbor’s cars is parked across the street.

Everyone in my school like to listen to K-pop.

For the past week, the department heads has been meeting to discuss making changes to the company’s family leave policy.

Can you figure out what’s wrong with the above sentences?

If you answered that they all have mistakes with subject-verb agreement, you are correct!

Subject–verb agreement means that the verb form must match the subject in number and person. If the subject and verb don’t match, then the sentence is not grammatically correct. Our TextRanch editors see mistakes with subject-verb agreement almost every day.

How can you make sure your subject and verb match when you write a sentence? Keep reading!

1. Find the subject.

Before we can determine whether your subject matches the verb, we need to know what the subject is. Most errors with subject-verb agreement happen when the writer tries to match the verb with a different noun rather than the main subject. (We’ll look at some examples of this in a moment.)

If you’re having difficulty finding the subject of a sentence, ask yourself some questions:

• Who or what is performing the action in this sentence?
• Who or what is the focus of the sentence? (This strategy is most effective when you’re looking for the subject in a sentence with a non-action verb.)

Pro tip: A subject can be a person, a place, a thing, or an event (such as a party, a holiday, or an election). A subject can also be a pronoun like “it”, “he”, “she”, or “they”.

2. Is the subject singular or plural?

Once you know the subject of your sentence, figure out if it is singular (one person, one place, or one thing) or if it is plural (more than one person, place or thing). Then pick the correct verb form to go with it.

Singular subject → singular verb
Plural subject → plural verb

Subject	Verb	Example
Singular	singular verb (usually ends in -s)	Bob works at XYZ Tech.
Plural	base verb (no -s)	Bob and Jessica work at XYZ Tech.

Here are a few more examples:

• The pizza tastes great.
• The nachos taste great.
• This essay needs revision.
• These documents need revision.
• My youngest son has red hair.
• All of my kids have red hair.

3. Don’t get confused when a subject has extra words.

Sometimes extra words appear between the subject and the verb. The verb must still agree with the main subject, not with some other, nearby noun. These types of mistakes happen a lot in academic, legal, and formal business writing where the sentences tend to be longer and more complicated.

Let’s look at an example of an incorrect sentence:

• This agreement between the two parties take effect on March 1, 2026.

Chances are, the writer thought “parties” (plural) was the subject of the sentence, not “agreement” (singular). Thus, the writer used the wrong verb form.

The correct version of this sentence should be:

• This agreement between the two parties takes effect on March 1, 2026.

 

4. Beware of compound subjects joined by “and”.

A compound subject is when two subjects are joined by “and”. In most cases, the verb should be plural.

• Gina and Franco are the top figure skaters in the country.
• The marketing department and the sales department disagree about the company’s new ad campaign.

Exception: When the two items form one idea or unit.

• Mac and cheese is served in the cafeteria every Friday.
• Rock and roll is my favorite kind of music.

5. “There is” and “there are” can be tricky.

In most sentences, the subject comes before the verb. But with “there is” and “there are”, the verb agrees with the noun that comes after it.

• There is a house for sale in my neighborhood.
• There are two small dogs in my neighbor’s backyard
• There is a new message from the CEO.
• There are several qualified candidates for the position.

6. Some singular pronouns are often mistaken for plural.

The following subjects may look plural, but they take a singular verb:

• Everyone
• Someone
• Each
• Nobody
• Anyone
• Everybody

Pro tip: We also use singular verbs with uncountable nouns such as “information”, “feedback”, “energy”, and “money”.

7. What about subjects joined by “or” or “nor”?

When a subject is joined by “or” or “nor”, the verb agrees with the subject closest to it.

• Neither the manager nor the employees are responsible for the damage to your laptop.
• The gym teachers or the basketball coach stays after school to put away the equipment.

---

Are you still a little confused about subject-verb agreement? Does your writing include some long, tricky sentences and you’d like a professional editor to look at them? Our TextRanch editors are here to help!