A correlated subquery is a SELECT statement nested inside another T-SQL statement, which contains a reference to one or more columns in the outer query. Therefore, the correlated subquery can be said to be dependent on the outer query. This is the main difference between a correlated subquery and just a plain subquery.
A plain subquery is not dependent on the outer query, can be run independently of the outer query, and will return a result set. A correlated subquery, since it is dependent on the outer query will return a syntax errors if it is run by itself.