human
How do you know when to use the active voice and when to use the passive voice?
assistant
When using the active voice, you should focus on the subject of the sentence. For example, if I want to say “I am writing a book”, then I would write “I am writing a book”. This is because the subject of the sentence is me, so it makes sense that I am doing the action. However, if I wanted to say “I am being written a book”, then I would use the passive voice. In this case, the subject of the sentence is the book, so it makes sense for someone else to be doing the action.