7.8 Subject-Verb Agreement.

The predicate noun is the complement of a subject; it identifies, describes, or renames the subject. When the subject and predicate noun differ in number, follow the number of the subject in selecting the singular or plural verb form.Avoid this by rephrasing: Study results were most affected by interhospital variations in severity of illness. ...Less

The subject and verb must agree in number; use a singular subject with a singular verb and a plural subject with a plural verb. Unfortunately, this simple rule is often violated, especially in complex sentences.Plural nouns take plural verbs and singular nouns take singular verbs, even if a phrase ending in a plural noun follows a singular subject or if a phrase ending in a singular noun follows a plural subject.A review of all patients with grade 3 tumors was undertaken in the university hospital. [The subject in this sentence is review. Ignore all modifying prepositional phrases that follow a ...Less