 Hi, I'm Gemma. I'm a pure learning facilitator at the UCLA Writing Center, and today we're going to be talking a bit about active versus passive voice. You probably know that every sentence has a subject of verb and an object. When a sentence is in subject verb object structure, for example, I walk the dog, it's an active voice. In an active voice sentence, the subject is the doer of the action and the object is the receiver. In this sentence, I am the doer, and the dog is the receiver of the action walk. Passive voice, on the other hand, places the object or receiver before the verb and doesn't always include the subject or doer. For example, the dog was walked is in passive voice. Passive sentences always have a being verb such as is, are, or were, and a verb in what we call a past participle format, which is usually made by adding ed to the end of the verb. Also notice that we don't know who's walking the dog because there's no subject or doer. We can add a doer at the end of the sentence by adding a by phrase, like the dog was walked by me. Many English teachers discourage us from using passive voice, but it can actually be helpful. The main purpose of passive voice is to achieve cohesion, like in these sentences. Daisy is covered in whipped cream. She was sprayed by her friend. The second sentence, which is in passive voice, flows naturally from the first. Daisy represented in the second sentence by the pronoun she is still the focus of the sentence. But if I put the second sentence in active voice, it wouldn't flow as well. Daisy is covered in whipped cream. Her friend sprayed her. Now her friend is the focus of the sentence and that shift breaks the cohesion of the sentence by shifting topics abruptly. Most sentences have a doer and a receiver. For example, in the sentence, we analyze the data, we are the doers and the data is the receiver or the thing that is being done. I can use passive and active voice to put the emphasis on the doer or the receiver. Watch this. Right now, both the doer, we and the receiver data are emphasized, but if I put the sentence in passive voice, the receiver has the emphasis, but the doer doesn't. The important thing is that the data was analyzed. It doesn't matter who analyzed it. Now if I add by us to the end of the sentence, the receiver is still the focus of the sentence, but the doer gets an extreme emphasis, even though the sentence is still passive voice. That by us part receives the most emphasis because it's where readers expect to find new information. Sometimes I use passive voice when the doer is irrelevant, like in this sentence. A meta analysis is defined as a research paper that combines and summarizes the results of multiple studies. The phrase is defined is in passive voice. I don't care who is providing the definition. I only care about the definition itself. So I use passive voice to deemphasize the doer. I also use passive voice when the doer is obvious, like in the sentence, they're paid weekly. It's obvious that they are paid weekly by their employer, so I don't need to say it. Instead, I deemphasize the doer by putting the sentence in passive voice. There are some verbs that are almost always put in passive voice. For example, it's common to say, I am interested in genetics rather than genetics interests me. Likewise, we also tend to write molecules are composed of atoms instead of atoms compose molecules. Other verbs like this include to be known for, to be exposed to, and to be located at. So now you know a little more about passive and active voice and when to use each. With these tips, I'm confident that you won't make any more grammar mistakes. Or as we say in passive voice, no more grammar mistakes will be made. Thanks for watching.