Using transitive and intransitive verbs

What is a transitive verb?

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Choice of active or passive voice with transitive verbs

An action or event involving two or more participants is typically represented in English by a transitive verb.

This means that the clause will have both a subject and an object. In an active voice clause the subject is always the same as the "doer" and the direct object is the participant who is directly affected by the action:

Roger hit Piggy.

Note that in the above example, the subject comes first in the sentence.

Many coursebooks present the passive voice as involving a simple switch of object in active voice to subject in passive voice:

Roger hit Piggy.                       object	active voice
Piggy was hit by Roger. subject	passive voice

However, a danger with this approach is that students may not realise that one of the main reasons for choosing the passive is because it avoids having to mention the "doer". In fact, studies have shown that about 90% of all uses of the passive make no mention of who carried out the action.

Teaching implications

When presenting the passive voice it may be useful to point out that the speaker or writer's reason for choosing the passive is often to focus on the action or event rather than on the person or thing responsible for causing the action or event. This means that the by ... phrase is usually omitted. For further information about this, see Using passive voice: Omitting or including the agent.

Introduction
A definition of transitive verbs
A list of verbs which are normally used transitively
Choice of active or passive voice with transitive verbs