Table of Contents
Biography
What is Biography? “The life story of a person written by someone else.” – Cambridge University dictionary.
Examples
He wrote a bio. of Xi Jinping.
This Bio. He offers a few glimpses of his life before he became famous.
His Bio. discloses that he was not as wealthy as everyone thought.
“The story of a person’s life written by somebody else.” – Oxford Learners Dictionaries.
Example:
- Taylor Swift’s Biography by Aastha Ghimire
- A biography by Dhruba Prasad Ghimire
- The book gives detailed biographies of all the significant painters.
https://en.wikipedia.org defines Bio.,” A bio., or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person’s life. It covers more than the bare facts like parents’ details, education, relationships, work, and death.
Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents a subject’s life story, highlighting various aspects of their life, including intimate details of experiences, and may include analyzing the subject’s personality.
Biographies are usually nonfiction, although fiction can also be used to picture a person’s life. One in-depth form of biographical coverage is also called legacy writing. Works from literature to film in diverse media form the genre known as Biography.
Autobiography
“A book about a person’s life, written by that person.” Defined by Cambridge Dictionary.
Examples:
- Barack Obama’s autobiography was a bestseller.
- “The story of a person’s life, written by that person; this type of writing.” defined by Oxford Learners’ Dictionaries.
- In her autobiography, she recalls the poverty she grew up in.
What is an Autobiography?
An autobiography is a nonfiction story of a person’s life, written by themselves from their perspective. Generally, a standard autobiography can’t be written by someone other than oneself. Most commonly, an autobiography should be written by the concerned person.
Autobiographies are popular among the general reading public. A recently released autobiography by a current political figure can easily top the New York Times bestseller list.
Particular autobiographical writing, such as Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, can endure for over a century and become part of the literary canon.
Autobiography vs. Bio.
A person writes biographies about others’ personal life. Biographers know to write great expertise about their subject personality.
Autobiographies take a more reflective approach. By contrast, an autobiographer only needs complete knowledge of one topic: themselves.
Autobiography vs. Memoir
Most notably, an autobiography is the first-person writing of its author’s entire life. Thus, a memoir selects an era or a specific multi-era journey within that author’s life.
Alternatively, a memoir may concern its author’s whole life but present it through a particular lens—perhaps highlighting the events leading up to and surrounding their professional career.
As such, a memoir is focused when considered side-by-side with an autobiography. For example, a professional footballer may document his/her entire life in his/her autobiography while emphasizing an era he/she believes will grab the reader’s interest, such as the summer he/she competed in the World Cup games. He/she may have focused the entire memoir around those World Cup games.
How to Write an Impressive Autobiography
Writing a remarkable autobiography or story about your own life is tough. Mentioned below is the essential step-by-step guide for writing your impressive autobiography:
Start from Brainstorming
Every writing process begins by compiling life experiences you suspect might appeal to a reader. As you sort through your memories, cover all eras of your life.
You should gather information from childhood, high school, and university levels—examples of success and failure. Next, you have to write your first job to the life-changing job in your life.
Collect all the memorable information and finalize the topics for the first draft of your book. You have to keep the process open during this period.
Craft an Outline
Begin to organize a narrative around the most compelling topics from your brainstorm. Then, with the critical events throughout your book, you can grip your readers’ attention from the beginning to the end of the study.
Do Your Research
Once you have the first draft of your outline, engage in some research to help you recall contextual information from the period you are writing about.
For example, you can discuss with your friends, family members, or seniors to help you remember the details from the moments you want to include in your autobiography.
It will be almost impossible to recognize the whole history of my entire life, focusing on childhood till now. So, prepare to do some cultural research on the relevant topic.
Write Your First Draft
You must attempt a first draft when you have come up with the vital biographical moments around which you can anchor your life story.
The first draft may be overly long and scattershot, but professional writers can help with a long-winded first draft.
Take a Break
After completing your first draft, take a short time off. You can read your work with the freshest possible perspective; removing yourself from the process for a certain period can aid this endeavor.
Proofread
Proofreading should start after a brief layoff. At this time, you should look for grammar mistakes, but more importantly, you should identify weak moments in the narrative and develop constructive improvements for accurate and interesting information. You are reading about another person’s life and applying it to your autobiography.
Write Your Next Draft
You have to write a second draft based on the notes you’ve given yourself. Then, when this second draft is complete, show it to trusted friends and a professional editor if you have one.
The experienced or skilled person will see from their outside eyes a valuable perspective you cannot possibly have on your work.
Refine Your Writing
You will refine your writing skills and autobiographical know-how following all the processes. Then, hopefully, you will produce a final draft that is leaps and bounds beyond what you created in a first draft—but that still holds to the essential elements of your life and your truth.
Six key factors to have in your autobiography
Most autobiographies should include all the crucial details of personal life story. Following are some key elements to have your autobio:
Start from your origin, personal origin story
This section can include your family history, hometown, key family members and loved ones, and touchstone moments in your formal and nonformal education.
Essential experiences
Add accounts of each personal experience that shaped your worldview and your approach to life in the present day.
Detailed information from your professional life
Often, these are the turning points that your autography is known for—the moments that would inspire someone to pick up your book in the first place.
So, you must give extra care and attention in this part of writing.
A personal story of failure
You have to write from an exciting way of responding to that failure.
A unique and compelling title
The title of the autography should be unique or generic phrases like “my autobiography” or “the story of me, my family, and famous people I know.”
A first-person narrative voice
Third-person writing is appropriate for traditional biographies, but third-person voice can read as presumptuous in autobiography.
What are the four types of Bio?
Generally, there are four basic biographies: Academic Biography, historical fiction, prophetic Biography, and fictional academic.
General Guidelines for Academic Bio
Basic information
The writer should include who you are, what you do, where you’ve worked and studied, and why you’re worth noticing. The writer should think about professional branding.
It is for essential functions such as personal advertisement. We want to present ourselves concisely and professionally so that other professionals can easily find and connect with you.
To make it easy for other scholars to see you and your research, consider your discipline’s current “hot topics” and how your work connects them.
For example, suppose your analysis focuses on recent changes in ritual music performed by women of minority groups in South Asia.
In that case, your key terms might include gender, globalization, modernity, ethnic minority, indigeneity, performance, ritual, and embodied epistemology.
Include these words in bio writing.
Context, audience, purpose, basically Where you’re submitting this bio? What should your reader need to know about you? Who is going to read it?
For example, if you’re offering a bio as part of a fellowship application, the reviewers will read it, and you’ll want to highlight your expertise and experiences.
In each case, consider your audience to determine what aspects of your career and research to highlight.
There are various ways to organize academic biography writing:
Broad to narrow
Include your general research topics and then your specific project.
Narrow to comprehensive
Please discuss your research projects and how they relate to your discipline.
Timeframe
There should be how your academic trajectory, your interests, and your work have developed during the timeframe.
Thematic
It is better to have a sentence or two on each of the following:
Where you currently work or what you do; your research topics, the theory and methodology you use; grants or awards; teaching accomplishments, publications, or creative work; and professional services (i.e., on a professional board/council or as a journal editor).
The first person or third person? In general, the third person is more professional than the first.
Revise regularly or Review
- To receive a prestigious grant or fellowship?
- Finish your master’s or Ph.D. program?
- Get published? Like any other professional document, the Biography should periodically update to reflect your most recent work.
Biography Content
Short bio
Generally, from 35 to 50 words, and used for conferences or social media sites. It should include: • Name.
- Profession
- Your department
- Your institution
- Your research interests
Mid-Length bio
Generally, 100 to 150 words are used on a department’s website. More than the above information, you can add:
- Degrees held
- Recent or ongoing scholarly projects
- Brief information in a sentence about your academic thesis
- Publications
- Notable awards and honors for research, teaching, and any creative projects you’ve completed (if relevant).
More extended bio
Generally, 150 to 400 words can be broken into more than one paragraph and used for your professional website, academic website, or scholarly publications. In addition to the above, you can add:
- How do your research interests focus on a larger field of study?
- Non-academic interests or hobbies
- You can add more information about your research background (especially if relevant to your research subject)
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