Tonight I'd like to discuss passive voice. If you don't want a grammar lesson, I suggest you leave now, but I think I can make this fun.
This is the boring part... Passive voice is the term given to a sentence (or, I think, part of a sentence) in which the object of the sentence is having something done to it, but it is not specifically clear whom or what the subject is. Usually. That's not completely the case. Let me give you an example:
"This sentence was constructed shittily."
The first part ("this sentence") is the OBJECT. And we don't know who constructed it shittily. Whomever constructed it would be the object.
However, even if we rephrase the sentence, thus:
"This sentence was constructed shittily by Helena."
--it's still passive voice. Because Helena, our subject, is still not directly acting upon our object. Helena, instead, is staring out the window and watching the rain fall, and is accepting minimal, if any, responsibility for the shitty construction of the sentence.
Okay. Now you understand passive voice. To locate it in your own sentences, look for forms of the verb "to be," such as "was, were, am, are, have been, has been, will be..." And so on. If you find one of those, and it's followed by a past-tense verb (i.e, a verb that usually ends with "-ed"), it is probably passive voice.
I know you're asking: Now, why does this matter?
Well, you see, it matters because if you go to Evergreen, like me, and you have to write weekly seminar papers, your teacher will underline your sentences and write "passive" next to them. And then you'll feel all bad because you got the Red Pen of Death.