Subject-verb agreement is when the subject and verb match grammatically. This is important for sentence clarity. This handout provides general information about subject-verb agreement, but writers should tailor their work to their audience and assignment.
The subject is what is doing the action or experiencing a state of being. It is a person, place, thing, or idea.
The verb describes an action or state of being.
The subject and verb agree when they match in number. A singular subject will have a singular verb and a plural subject will have a plural verb.
Subjects joined by and become a plural subject and will take a plural verb.
Subjects joined by or could have a singular or plural verb, depending on which subject is closest to the verb.
Indefinite pronouns such as anybody, nobody, someone, etc. are singular subjects and take a singular verb.
Collective nouns are nouns that group multiple parts into one whole. Collective nouns will usually take singular verbs. However, the collective noun may be made plural. In this case, it would take a plural verb.
Some words can be singular or plural (deer, moose, they), so context will determine subject-verb agreement.