Learn English – “What I’m looking for is/are [plural noun]”

begrammatical-numberverb-agreementword-choice

Which one of these is correct, and if both are correct in certain contexts, which is preferred?

  • What I'm looking for is methods that help…
  • What I'm looking for are the methods that help…

I know this may seem a duplicate of previous questions like Is it “5–6 weeks are a lot of time” or “5–6 weeks is a lot of time”?, but I think this is — not being about collective/mass nouns(?) — a somewhat different question.

(No, I'm not a native speaker of English.)

Best Answer

"are" is correct since "methods" is plural. I can't envision a context in which "is methods" is correct, however "is a list of methods" is OK, because the list is singular.