Find the sentence’s main noun or pronoun
Ask who or what the sentence is about
Locate the word that performs the action or is being described
Ignore modifiers, articles, and prepositional phrases
Identify only the core noun or pronoun, not the whole subject phrase
Check that the word agrees with the verb
In commands, understand that the subject is usually implied as you
In questions, rewrite the sentence as a statement to find the subject
In sentences with linking verbs, find the noun or pronoun after the verb if it renames the subject
In sentences with compound subjects, identify each simple subject separately