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Â鶹Æƽâ°æ College
The Â鶹Æƽâ°æ Guide to Writing

Agreement

Agreement means consistency. That is, if a noun is singular, it takes a singular verb form or pronoun; if a noun is plural, it takes a plural verb form or pronoun.

Noun-verb agreement

Here are some examples of noun-verb agreement.

I am at home. ("am" agrees with the subject, "I")
She is at home. ( "is" agrees with the subject, "she")
The girls are at home. ("are" agrees with the subject, "the girls")

Pronoun-noun agreement

Pronouns take the place of nouns. If a pronoun replaces a subject, use these pronouns: I, she, he, it, they, we.

            My brother and I will go to Florida in May.

If pronouns come after a preposition in a sentence, use these pronouns: me, her, him, it, them, us.

            Send a reply to Sally and me.
            The book belongs to him.

Here is a typical pronoun error:

            Me and her went to the movies.

"Me" and "her" cannot be used as the subject of a sentence. Therefore, the correct sentence is

            She and I went to the movies.

Here's another example of the same type of error:

            The pizza was divided between my roommate and I.

Since the pronoun comes after the preposition "between," the sentence should read

            The pizza was divided between my roommate and me.

A singular pronoun should replace a singular noun; a plural pronoun should replace a plural noun. Here, for example, is a very common pronoun mistake with a few possible revisions:

            Any Â鶹Æƽâ°æ student can decorate their dorm room with posters.

This is grammatically incorrect because "Any Â鶹Æƽâ°æ student" refers to a single student, and the pronoun "their" is a plural possessive pronoun. (In the same way, "each Â鶹Æƽâ°æ student" refers to a single student, not to everyone.) There are two ways to revise such a sentence:

            Any Â鶹Æƽâ°æ student can decorate his or her dorm room with posters.
            Â鶹Æƽâ°æ students can decorate their rooms with posters.

If you want to avoid gender bias in choosing pronouns, changing a noun to a plural can help solve the problem. In general, overusing "his or her" construction makes writing awkward.

Click here to read more about agreement in the context of correct grammar.