Subject-Verb Agreement Errors
What is Subject-Verb Agreement?
In a sentence, a verb should agree with a subject in person (first, second, or third) and in
number (singular or plural). So, what does that mean? Say, we have the verb work. The verb
form changes depending on the subject: we say "I work", but we say, "he works". We call this
subject-verb agreement.
Agreement is easy when the subject is clear and is placed right beside the verb, but occasionally
the writer can misidentify the subject or lose sight of it completely, for a number of reasons,
including the following:
(In the example sentences, the subject is in italics and the verb is in bold).

Tricky Plural Forms
Incorrect: In judging managerial style, the most important criteria is concern for
relationships with people.
Correct: In judging managerial style, the most important criterion is concern for
relationships with people.
In this sentence, the subject and verb do not agree because "criteria" is a plural word. The
singular is "criterion". If you were to replace the word "criteria" with a pronoun, the pronoun
would be "they", not "it". Would you write, "They is"? No, it would be "They are". So, in the
above sentence, the subject would have to be "criterion" to match the verb form "is".
How do we figure out what is the correct verb form for the subject? One way to do this is to ask
yourself, would I replace this subject, for example "criterion", with "he", "she", "it" or with
"they"?
In this case, "criterion" would be replaced by an "it". Then try asking yourself, what verb form
would I use with "it" as the subject? Would I say "It is" or "It are"? We usually know right away
using the pronoun.

Compound Subjects
Incorrect: Computers, film and television influences the attention span of adolescents.
Correct: Computers, film and television influence the attention span of adolescents.

Collective or Entity Subjects
Incorrect: My family are eccentric.
Correct: My family is eccentric.

Lost Subjects
Incorrect: The most difficult thing about living in the barrens are the sudden
snowstorms.
Correct: The most difficult thing about living in the barrens is the sudden snowstorms.
More information on these kinds of Subject-Verb Agreement errors and how to avoid them can
be found at the ASC’s Grammar Module Four: Correct and Clear Sentences.
Practice Sentences
The subject of the sentence is in italics.
1. Each member of the orchestra (plays play) two instruments.
2. Neither board games nor sports (is are) of any interest to my electronics- obsessed
children.
3. One of the sides (seems seem) to enjoy mass support while the other (fights fight) a
holding action of counter-information.
4. The increasing use of technology in the workplace and the resulting impact on society
(has have) been well-documented.
5. Workers, forced to use computers and subjected to working in impersonal situations,
(requires require) enhanced skills.
Answer Key
The subject of the sentence is in italics . The correct answer is in bold.
1. Each member of the orchestra (plays play) two instruments.
2. Neither board games nor sports (is are) of any interest to my electronics-obsessed
children.
3. One of the sides (seems seem) to enjoy mass support while the other (fights fight) a
holding action of counter-information.
4. The increasing use of technology in the workplace and the resulting impact on society
(has have) been well-documented.
5. Workers, forced to use computers and subjected to working in impersonal situations,
(requires require) enhanced skills.
The Academic Skills Centre
Trent University
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