What is passive voice writing?

Passive voice writing occurs when the subject of a sentence is acted upon rather than performing the action. In this construction, the focus shifts from who is doing the action to the action itself or the recipient of the action. For example, instead of saying "The chef cooked the meal," a passive voice version would be "The meal was cooked by the chef." While passive voice can be useful for emphasizing the action or the recipient, it can sometimes lead to less direct and more cumbersome sentences.