— , a novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The linear structure is the standard for most biographies; it starts at a specific point in the protagonist's life and moves forward in chronological order. Nonlinear structure is more complex as this style moves between time periods with time skips and flashbacks. Thematic structure strategically conveys given and new information to frame and insert specific themes.
For your biography essay, your subject will be the person whose life story you will be writing. In order for your biography essay to be effective, you will have to pick a subject who is interesting, important, or otherwise qualified to be the subject of a biography essay. You should ask yourself the question: why choose your subject, and what has your subject done that deserves to be recorded and remembered?
Of course, there's a sense in which every single human life is interesting and important. But for the purposes of your biography essay, you will want to dig deeper and consider why your subject is worthy of being remembered in the collective cultural memory.
An effective biography usually focuses on someone who has affected history, or someone who has achieved a high level of excellence within his/her discipline or field.
Søren Kierkegaard: A very important philosopher
Kierkegaard would be an example a good subject for a biography essay, because his works are generally considered a turning point in modern philosophy.
The subject of your biography essay does not necessarily need to be well-known. In fact, it can be a lot of fun to dig into the life of someone is not well known but should be. The important thing is that your subject must be compelling, and there must be a solid reason why his/her story should be told.
Also, when picking a subject, you may want to make sure that you actually like your subject. That can make writing a biography essay more fun, and your respect for the subject (or lack thereof) will also probably come across in your writing. If you want to convince others that your subject is compelling, then it would help if you find him/her compelling.
A lot can happen in a life, and it would probably be impossible for you to include everything there is to know about your subject within a single biography essay. So, you should choose the high point, or the most important points, and then focus on those.
Events in the life of Kierkegaard
These are key events that could be the focus of a biography essay on Kierkegaard.
Event | Rationale | |
Kierkegaard is born on the 5th of May, 1813. | Logical starting point for the biography essay. | |
Kierkegaard breaks his engagement with a girl named Regine Olsen on the 11th of August, 1841. | This is considered to be a turning point in his life and a major catalyst behind several of his works. | |
affair | Kierkegaard gets into a bitter public dispute with a tabloid called the . | This renewed his creativity in the later part of his life. |
Kierkegaard dies on the 11th of November, 1855. | Logical ending point for the biography essay. |
Garff, Joakim. Søren Kierkegaard: A Biography. Princeton: Princeton U P, 2007.
Now that you know about the elements of a biography essay, you can follow these steps in order to ensure that your biography essay turns out to be a success.
Next, integrate the specific biography related aspects listed below.
Again, your biography essay won't be able to include everything there is to know about your subject. So, you will want to map out the scope of your biography essay before you get started. The birth and death of your subject are the logical starting and ending points for your essay. Then, you will want to select a few events or accomplishments in the life of your subject that are worthy of remembrance.
You can develop a full-fledged outline, or you can use a table like the one developed above. Either way, though, you will have to have a clear idea of where you will begin, where you will end, and the path that you will take from the beginning to the end.
Your biography essay has to be rooted in verifiable facts about the life of your subject. This means that it is important that you identify and document the sources of your information. The essay sources should generally be scholarly in nature, and you should avoid using websites to the greatest extent possible. This is because it is often difficult to tell whether the content on websites have been drawn from credible sources.
Questions to ask when compiling sources
If there are references listed on a website about your subject, then you should trace those references back to the original academic sources. Those are the sources you should use for your biography essay.
Remember: with your biography essay, you are at least partly trying to show your reader why your subject is interesting and why he/she deserves to have an essay written about him/her.
Your interest in your subject should come across in your writing style. After all, if you feel bored with your subject, then why should anyone else pay attention?
The language you use should be scholarly (but still filled with imagery ), but you should also focus on varying sentence structure, using excellent word choice, and other writing techniques that tell the life story of your subject in a compelling way that does justice to the importance of your subject.
See the example biographical essay below for a clear example of how it needs to be written.
As the sample shows, it’s very important to be focused on true details. Please see the list of blog posts below for more examples of biography essays:
If you need more help or would like something written for your own needs, consider buying custom essays from Ultius . Our talented writes can help you get something done in as fast as three hours.
That brings us to the close of this guide on the biography essay. Here is a recapitulation of some of the best practices that have been covered here.
Develop a focused arc
You should use a linear narrative structure, starting with the birth of your subject, ending with their death, and focusing on selected key events and accomplishments in the subject's life.
Write in the scholarly mode
Although a biography essay is a kind of "story," it should still be written in a rational, scholarly way, and referencing in MLA or Chicago style is usually required for this kind of essay.
Love your subject
If you get to choose your subject, then you should pick a subject that you personally admire. This will make the writing process more fun, and your interest will also show in your writing and make the biography essay more enjoyable for the reader.
Find help if you need it
Finally, Ultius has plenty of resources that can help you write a successful biography essay and hone your skills as a writer. Please feel free to lean on us.
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Last Updated: July 4, 2023 Fact Checked
This article was co-authored by Stephanie Wong Ken, MFA . Stephanie Wong Ken is a writer based in Canada. Stephanie's writing has appeared in Joyland, Catapult, Pithead Chapel, Cosmonaut's Avenue, and other publications. She holds an MFA in Fiction and Creative Writing from Portland State University. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 54,048 times.
Writing a biography can seem daunting, as you are trying to explore the entirety of someone's life on the page. The key to writing a good biography is outlining it before you dive in. A strong, detailed outline will work through key events chronologically. To outline a biography, start by discussing early life and childhood. Then, go into adulthood and current life, or later life and death if the person is no longer alive.
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May 16, 2023
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03 July, 2020
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Author: Elizabeth Brown
Got a chance to write about your idol but need help with realization? Read our article to know the secrets of effective biography essay writing. Whoever you decide to write a biography essay about, don’t try to include random information at once. The person you describe would not like it. Instead, read our article about how to write a biography essay correctly and, more importantly, take pleasure in composing it. We’ll share some smart tips and tricks that you’ll find particularly useful for your writing.
Some tend to mistakenly attribute biographical essay to the process of writing about themselves. But actually, biography definition has nothing to do with you. It’s more about telling the engaging story about a person’s life. This individual can be anyone: a famous historical figure, a well-known actor, politician, dancer, musician, artist, writer, inventor – you get the point. Such task sounds intriguing and interesting, and indeed it is. A biographical essay is a great chance to dilute simple academic tasks with a pinch of new article full of interesting facts and opinions.
Before writing a biography essay, it’s important to pay attention to essay structure and build up a biography outline. An outline is generally a schematic plan that helps to organize biography essays in accordance with the writer’s preference. In this, the primary task is to create a list of the most significant facts you’ll want to develop in the essay. The easiest way of arranging an outline is to add a numbered list indicating the main points, and a list of sub-points marked with bullets. Also, don’t forget to include a biography thesis statement that’ll sum up the main idea of your essay in one sentence.
Before writing, you first need to understand what to include in a biography essay. An eloquent biography essay always starts with the introduction of a chosen person. The initial step of writing it involves the inclusion of such information as the person’s name, date of their birth, and the place they were born in. Of course, it’s not a uniform set of data necessary for this part. You can take the situation in your hands and write about some cultural or historical background surrounding one’s birthplace or the day they were born. Adding such information to the introductory part will help to create some context by connecting you and readers closer to the described character and broadening the common knowledge with more absorbing facts.
When people ask how to write a biography paper, the only thing they think of is a random flow of ideas about someone’s life. In fact, writing a biography paper is more complicated. The section following the introduction is devoted to life description. Here, you’ll need to feature early life and childhood of a chosen person. This part should cover general information about their parents, and divert readers’ attention to some facts related to their origin, education, and relationship status. Next, focus more on education and place where the person grew up. In this section, include more detailed information about the critical moments of their childhood life, like the name of the school they studied in or the point of moving to another city or town. Perhaps there are more facts worthy of note, such as family problems or health issues that revolved around one’s childhood. If there are such, include them as well.
The second section of your biographical essay will tell readers about someone’s adulthood. Depending on the person, this piece of story can be outlined differently. For example, you can write about their university or college life, or indicate their first job. The point here is to chronologically depict a period of moving from childhood to adult life. Then, talk about the formation of a person’s career path, starting with the first working experience and ending with the remarkable moment of revealing talents and skills that shaped their life. In the next paragraph, mention the person’s relationship during their adulthood. If applicable, describe how someone special helped them to become successful or motivated them throughout their career. Another significant aspect in this section has to do with the person’s success, in which readers could know about their notable accomplishments and achievements.
The final section of a biography essay will touch the person’s current or later life. If they are alive, include the overlook of their place of living and write about their activities. You can also add such information as to their current projects or career plans, along with other meaningful facts about their life.
If the person you’re writing about is no longer living, emphasize on the brightest moments at the sunset of their life. Mention the definitive moments and aspects, and write about the cause of their deaths.
If you want your biography essay to leave a great impact on readers, don’t conclude it with a simple explanation of why this or that person died and what their latest works were. This is only factual information which brings no specific value to your essay and, more importantly, doesn’t breathe life into it. To wrap up your essay content with a memorable grabber, include a couple of sentences in which write about the person’s legacy. That is, add the opinion of why this individual’s activity became an exceptional contribution to the world’s history, and why they have changed some aspects of their field.
Biography essay writing is a responsible task that aims at showing a well-acclaimed person from the best light. Therefore, you need to write about one’s life as you would about your mother – with maximum details and showing respect for that person. So follow our advice to compose an A+ biography essay that you and your audience will enjoy reading.
Note that our company provides academic writing help. You can buy a Biography essay written from scratch by our essay writer .
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Writing an essay is a usual task students are assigned on a daily basis. Since there are multiple types of essays, they differ in their structure, purpose, and requirements. A biographical essay is not a very common type of academic writing. Hence, not every student is aware of how to write it. Should I write about facts from a person’s life? How do I write an autobiography essay? If these and more questions bother you when you think about composing a bio essay, then you should definitely read our guide below on how to write a biography essay.
Before you start writing an introduction to the biographical essay, you have to learn what it is. A biography essay is a type of academic writing in which a writer should tell the audience about a certain person’s life.
The main difference between a bio essay and other types of essays is that the author should provide an in-depth overview of someone’s history of life including much more facts than just the date of birth, childhood, and occupation.
When writing this type of essay, it is essential to analyze a person’s life, not just state the events in chronological order. Otherwise, it will be an informative type of academic writing that just states the information.
The goal of writing a biographical essay is to tell a story about a person’s life and highlight the significant achievements she or he did during the lifespan. Special attention should be given to the things that the subject is popular for. However, the writer should also focus on analyzing the facts, providing personal thoughts on what the person did right or wrong, and how the main character reached the results he is famous for.
It is also very common to be assigned to compose an essay about yourself. This type of academic piece of paper is called an autobiography. And while writing information about someone else sounds pretty easy, analyzing your own life might be more complicated.
An autobiography essay is always required when applying for college, different courses, or competitions. And the procedure of writing it is the same as writing a biographical essay but in this case, you become the main character of the story.
The peculiarities of writing about someone else in the first place are hidden in making a choice on whom to tell about. Depending on the topic of your essay, this can be a famous person or someone you know as a friend. So whether you write about a celebrity or your relative, the approach to writing will be different.
In the first case, you will have to gather a lot of information from trusted sources. The more fascinating facts you gain, the better as it will help you to compose a perfect essay. In the second case, your knowledge about a person will be your main source of information.
Before you get an answer to a question: “How to write biographical essay?”, you should definitely seek information on how to start a biography essay. Since you will have to write about a person’s life in a logical and coherent way, it is crucial to prepare for this creative process. Below you will find the description of the main steps that will help you to get yourself ready for the writing.
The first and most important step to take is to choose the right topic. Unless you are given a specific person to write about by your teacher, you should make this choice wisely. Always consider picking up a character you are interested in. Then narrow down your selection by the availability of information about the person. Before you consider choosing one topic, look for credible sources that provide truthful information about the subject of your work.
Also, here you can find some examples of topics for a biographical essay:
When you have chosen a perfect topic for your essay, it is quite a time to go to the next step and create a biography essay outline. In your structure, you have to cover the following paragraphs:
As you see, a biographical essay outline is the same as any other type of essay. Depending on the amount of information and your arguments, you can add more paragraphs to the body of your essay.
An essential step in creating an A+ biographical essay is gathering information. However, you should not trust every link on the Internet since especially about famous people there is numerous fake news.
So in order to gather only real facts, you should look for authoritative publications, magazines, and books about the person you are analyzing in your work. All sources should have a reference list from where the information was taken. You can also get useful pieces of info from interview videos of celebrities if there are ones.
When the preparation procedure is done, you are ready to start writing your biographical essay. Whether you wonder how to write a biography essay about yourself or another person, the instructions will be the same. The introduction of a paper is where a reader forms the first impression. So it should be very captivating and engaging. Learn what your opening paragraph should include.
Inserting a hook at the beginning of the essay is the perfect tactic to keep the audience motivated to read your work. This can be a quote from the person you are describing, an anecdote from his life, or a shocking fact.
A hook should be moderately exciting. Don’t try to create something unbelievably fantastic. This opening sentence should be real and catchy.
The main purpose of writing a biography essay is in the thesis statement. Whether you write biography essay topics about famous people or yourself, you have to make your personal thoughts of what you think the character is recognizable for. A statement should be placed at the end of the introductory paragraph.
The statement is the main idea of the essay. Whether it is a positive or a negative trait of a person, your next paragraphs should fit it. It is not acceptable just to write general information. The whole text should correspond with the thesis statement written in the introduction.
The main scope of information is described in the body paragraphs of the essay. When following a standard instruction on how to write an essay on a person, the main part of the work should consist of three body paragraphs. All the info you will be sharing should go in a chronological way. Include interesting facts, intriguing stories, and clear examples from the person’s life. Here is how you can build your essay body.
Write some info about a person’s early years of living. Guide the audience through the place of birth of the person, his parents, and the moments that shaped him as the person he is or was in maturity.
Education is the most essential factor that influences a person’s life. So in your second body paragraph, you should focus on providing the facts about the character’s school and college life. Most likely, the talent of a person was revealed exactly at school times, so you might explain to the audience what the first steps to success were.
The main discoveries happen in life when you become an adult. So that is where you should focus on providing interesting facts about the person’s achievements, turning points, and growth. If there were major accomplishments made by the character, it is important to analyze their connection and impact on the current state of things.
The wrapping-up paragraph is what gives readers an aftertaste after reading your biography essay. And you definitely want to leave a perfect note at the end of the story. That is why just restating the thesis statement will not be enough. In this part of the work, your main task will be to cover the following.
Imagine reading several paragraphs about a famous character who made some incredible discoveries in his life. Surely, at the end of the story, you will want to find out how these accomplishments can be applied in today’s society. And that is what every reader would like to see in the concluding part.
If the person was so significant, what did he leave for our generations? If this is a scientist, then we can rely on their discoveries; if this is a singer, we can listen to their music; if this is a fashion model, we can get inspiration from his character. Demonstrate in such a way what can be useful for us to get from the person you described.
In conclusion, you can focus again on the major accomplishments of the person. Draw a parallel to how these achievements affect and will affect humanity. Write how it is influenced the most by the character of your story.
You already know the main steps on how to write an essay about a person. But there is always room for improvement especially if you don’t write everyday biography essays. Besides following the instructions on how to start biography essay and write body paragraphs, there are more tips that will help you in this process. Here they are.
If you don’t want to waste time learning how to start a biography essay about yourself or how to start an essay about a person, you can turn to our essay service. We can write you an academic paper of any type and complexity within the shortest deadline.
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If following a standard biography essay format, you will have to write five paragraphs: an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
A biography essay structure relates to the parts your work should consist of. This is the number of paragraphs you should build your bio essay on.
If you wonder how to start a biographical essay, make these steps of preparation: begin with the topic selection, then create the outline for your essay, and conduct research on the person you are to describe.
If you want to know how to write a biography paper, make sure to follow these instructions: get ready for writing by doing research on the topic you have chosen; start your essay with a hook and thesis statement; provide information in chronological order; and then conclude what you have written.
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You might be familiar with the word biography. A biography means a written account of another person’s life. As a high school, college or university student, a biography essay is one of the basic requirements to complete your academic program. Writing a biographical essay becomes hectic when you don’t have time or the required skills. But don’t worry. If you find biography writing to be a time-consuming task or lack the required skills, consider utilizing our biography writing services . Nerdpapers offers professional support in crafting well researched and engaging biographies that meet academic standards. Now let’s teach you how to write a biography essay!
Before you start learning how to write a biography essay, you should first understand what a biographical essay is?
It is unique in that it paints the true picture of a person. A biographical essay is one that describes the life and work of a certain individual. Generally, biographical essays are of two types. The first one is used in the academic context, where students have to write an essay about a historical figure or person that is important to the writer. You have to follow the specific structure (introduction, body, and conclusion) in this type of essay. These types of essays are common in colleges as well as universities. On the other hand, the second type of biographical essay does not follow the academic structure and only presents certain moments and experiences of the subject’s life.
Even if they differ from other essays in some ways, biographical essays still follow a specific pattern and structure. With the help of the biographical essay outline, you can better arrange your ideas and ensure that you don’t forget any crucial details. This structured approach to will streamline your process and result in a more engaging essay. So, how to write a biography essay outline? Sometimes, professors specify a five paragraph standard structure. This means that your biography essay outline will consist of these components such as:
Now, you have a clear understanding of the biography writing format. It’s time to learn about how to write a biography paper.
A biography essay is unique in that it paints the true picture of a person. It can also serve as a tool through which you can show different aspects of a well-known person’s life about which other people don’t know. Moreover, it is an interesting method to learn about famous people. Here are a few steps that will help you to follow the biography writing format.
Most students are wondering, ‘How to write an introduction for a biography essay’? That makes a good impression on the reader. It is the first paragraph of your biography paper. So, you should pay extra attention to what you are writing in this section. Start with an attention grabbing hook that will set the tone of this entire section. Write basic information about the person, such as their name, DOB, birthplace, parents name, etc. Then, end the introduction with a strong thesis statement.
Body paragraphs are the central parts of your essay. You will discuss the goals and milestones of the subject’s life and achievements with the help of these paragraphs. If you plan to follow five paragraph structures, then this section will have three body paragraphs. There is no standard way to categorize your biography essay, but since you’re writing about a person’s life – you can talk about their life stages such as childhood, adulthood, school, college, and university life. In the first body paragraph, talk about their childhood events, memories, and experiences. Reserve the second paragraph entirely for academic career discussion. Add information about the subject’s school, college, and university years. Which challenges they faced and how they overcame them. In the third paragraph, add their contributions, professional careers, which field they choose, and why. How did they perform in that field? What are other people’s opinions about them?
Note: Remember that deep research is required before writing this essay.
It is an essential part of an essay, and it’s true for these types of essays as well. In conclusion, bring your thoughts together and restate your thesis statement. Do not repeat the claims that you have made throughout the essay. The best essay not only explores the person’s work and life but also offers well known facts about them.
Proofread your bio essay to check for grammatical, punctuation mistakes. Additionally, ask your friend or any member of family to read your prepared essay and provide you with their feedback. This will help you to make your essay more refined and polished.
☑️Reading suggestion: What is an annotated bibliography and how to structure it to complement your biography essay.
Sometimes, you may be asked to write a biography about a famous personality. It doesn’t matter if this individual is still alive or not; you may easily obtain information about him. Suppose you’re thinking about what to include in a biography of a famous person. Don’t worry. It is relatively easy to write about someone who has a rich life story. The key to effective biography writing is to solely depend on facts, not on fiction. You should not simply list facts about the person’s life. You also have to add your own opinions. But those opinions should be based on official statements from a person’s biography.
Let’s have a look at biographical essay examples that will help you to understand more.
On March 14, 1879, Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany. He is among the most well-known and significant physicists of the 20th century. His revolutionary contributions to theoretical physics transformed our view of the universe and cemented his reputation as a brilliant scientist. Early on, Einstein showed a strong sense of interest as well as a natural aptitude for physics and mathematics. He had difficulties in school since he was a nonconformist and had a speech impediment, but he had a remarkable ability to solve difficult mathematics problems. He chose to pursue a career in physics because of his love for learning about the underlying principles governing the cosmos. In 1905, Einstein published the “Annus Mirabilis” papers, which formed the groundwork for his theory of special relativity. These studies introduced the well-known formula E=mc² which describes how mass and energy are equivalent. This hypothesis significantly changed our perception of the physical world by challenging traditional beliefs about time and space. Moreover, the general relativity theory, Einstein’s most renowned contribution, was released in 1915. In contrast to what was previously believed, it proposed that mass-induced space time curvature is what causes gravity, not a force. British astronomers saw the bending of starlight as a star passed close to the sun during the 1919 solar eclipse, confirming this notion and providing experimental support for Einstein’s theories. Einstein made contributions during his life that went beyond physics. He was an outspoken supporter of pacifism, civil rights, as well as the elimination of nuclear weapons. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 for his explanation of the photoelectric effect, a phenomena that contributed to the development of the quantum mechanics theory. Beyond his scientific accomplishments, Einstein left a lasting legacy. His devotion to improving humanity as well as his creative mind has inspired future generations of scientists and philosophers. On April 18, 1955, Albert Einstein passed away, yet his concepts and impact are still being used to improve science and solve the universe’s riddles.
☑️Reading suggestion: Difference between autobiography and biography
Thinking about how to write a biography essay to make it error free? Check out these simple tips written by our expert writers.
Q1: how to start a biography essay.
Start your biography essay with the basic information about the subject’s life, such as their name, profession, etc.
The basic purpose of writing a biographical essay is to share the life of another person with people. The author chooses to write a biography because it’s an assignment given by the teacher or because the author finds the subject’s life interesting.
The structure is given below:
It is similar to other forms of essays. Biographies include pertinent information regarding the subject’s life. In some cases, it also examines the personality and attributes of the subject.
The following are the basic elements of a biography:
Bio essay writing is not a simple task, especially if you’re not familiar with its format before. If you are short of time and are stuck with other assignments you can buy your essay online . Don’t let the biography essay writing task stress you out!
Nerdpapers will streamline your academic journey with their comprehensive writing assistance. We’ll handle research, source gathering, content creation, editing, and formatting, saving you valuable time and energy.
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As a high school or college student, you have probably written dozens, if not hundreds, of essays of all types. However, a biographical essay is nothing like you have written before. In fact, despite seeming relatively easy, the task of writing a biography essay can get very confusing to inexperienced students.
Instead of your ideas, a biography essay utilizes facts, but it takes a lot of research and writing skills to write a biography essay that will impress both your peers and your professor. Our essay writing service has prepared a detailed guide on how to write a good biography essay, and here is everything you need to know.
Before you can find out how to write a biography essay, you need to learn the answer to the essential question: what is a biography essay? A biographical essay is a type of academic paper where the author tells the story of someone’s life.
In some ways, biographical essays are similar to other types of essays, especially narrative papers. They both tell a story that should captivate and inform the readers. However, a biographical essay focuses solely on the story of one person and often includes an analysis of the person’s personality, not just a list of significant events from the subject’s life story.
Typically, the biography essay format deals with the life story of another person. In some cases, you may be tasked with writing a biography about yourself. In that case, your paper will be called an autobiography essay, and it’s a common assignment in high school and during the college application process.
At first glance, a biography essay may seem like just another type of written assignments that you simply have to do for a good grade. However, a bibliography essay is actually a very important piece of writing that allows you to tell a story of another person’s greatness, significance, or vulnerability through his life events.
Biography essay outline.
Even though a biographical essay is a unique form of writing, it still requires you to follow a specific format and structure. The biography essay outline helps you keep your thoughts in order and never miss a single significant fact or quote.
So, how to write a biography essay outline? Unless otherwise specified by your professor, you should follow the standard five-paragraph essay structure. It means that your biography essay outline will include the following chapters:
Now that you know what is biography essay and how to create a good biography essay outline, it is time to finally find out how to write a biography essay. In this part of our guide, we will focus on a personal biography essay, or autobiography.
Students are often wondering: how to start off a biography essay to make a good impression on the readers? The introduction is the first part of your paper the readers will encounter, and you should pay extra attention to what you write in this chapter.
How to write an introduction for a biography essay? Start with a hook — an attention-grabbing sentence that sets the tone for the paper. It can be a personal anecdote, a fact, or a quote from someone else describing you.
In the rest of the introduction, write a little about yourself without giving up any important facts — save those for the upcoming chapters of the essay. Finish the introduction with a thesis statement, where you should describe the essence of your biography essay.
If you went for the classic five-paragraph structure with your biography, you will have three body paragraphs. There is no standard way to distribute your biography between those three paragraphs, but since you are writing about yourself — a young person whose later years are still ahead of them — you can use the following structure:
Since it’s a personal essay, you probably won’t use too much research to support your claims, which will be based on your own life. However, you should carefully choose the wording, not to exaggerate your achievements. Be as close to your own life events as possible.
A conclusion is an essential part of any essay, and it’s equally true for a biography essay. Since you are retelling your own life story, and it’s difficult to assess your contribution to the society simply because you are only at the beginning of your own career, you should write about the way your life until this point impacted your development as a person.
Our essay service has already covered how to write a personal biography essay, but in most cases, you will be tasked with writing a biography essay about a different person — usually, someone famous and significant in their own field. This person can be dead or alive, but they will likely have a rich biography that is relatively easy to write about.
The key to writing a strong biography essay is to rely strictly on facts, not on fiction. It doesn’t mean that you should simply list the facts from the person’s life story without any opinions of your own, but those opinions and assumptions must always be based on the official statements from the person’s biography.
Wondering how to write a biography essay to make it absolutely flawless? Check out these extra writing tips from our expert team of authors that specialize in essay writing in the United States:
How to craft an engaging and insightful biography essay that captivates your readers.
Writing a biography essay can be a challenging task, as it requires capturing the essence of a person’s life in a concise and engaging manner. Whether you are writing a biography for a school assignment or for publication, there are several key tips to keep in mind to ensure that your essay is compelling and well-written.
Research is key: Before you start writing, make sure to thoroughly research the person you are writing about. This includes gathering information about their life, accomplishments, and the historical context in which they lived. The more you know about your subject, the better equipped you will be to craft a detailed and accurate biography.
Focus on the narrative: A biography is a story, so make sure to structure your essay in a way that captures the arc of your subject’s life. Start with an engaging introduction that sets the stage for the rest of the essay, then move on to the main body where you explore key events and experiences in the person’s life. Finally, conclude with a strong ending that ties everything together and leaves a lasting impression on the reader.
When crafting a compelling biography essay, consider these expert tips to make your writing stand out:
1. | Start with a captivating introduction that sets the tone for the rest of the essay. |
2. | Research thoroughly to gather accurate information and interesting anecdotes about the subject. |
3. | Focus on key moments and events in the subject’s life that highlight their character and achievements. |
4. | Show, don’t tell – use descriptive language and vivid imagery to bring the subject to life on the page. |
5. | Structure your essay effectively with clear transitions between paragraphs and sections. |
By following these expert tips, you can create a biography essay that will engage readers and leave a lasting impression.
Writing a captivating biography requires a combination of skill, creativity, and attention to detail. To truly captivate your readers, you must delve deep into the subject’s life story, highlighting key events, challenges, and triumphs that shaped their journey. It’s essential to portray their essence and character through vivid anecdotes, engaging descriptions, and powerful storytelling techniques.
By weaving together facts with emotions, you can create a rich tapestry of narratives that bring the subject to life on the page, allowing readers to connect with them on a personal level. Remember to balance the narrative with well-researched information and ensure that the biography flows smoothly, keeping the reader engaged from start to finish.
Ultimately, a captivating biography is more than just a retelling of events; it’s a celebration of a life lived, a tribute to the extraordinary qualities that make the subject unique and inspiring. Through your writing, you have the power to immortalize their story and leave a lasting impact on those who read it.
To craft a compelling biography essay, thorough research on your subject is essential. Dive deep into all available resources, including books, articles, interviews, and any other materials that offer insights into the life of the person you are writing about. Take note of key events, experiences, achievements, and significant moments that shaped their life. By conducting extensive research, you will be able to provide a detailed and accurate portrayal of your subject in your essay.
Before you start writing a biography essay, it is crucial to gather all the key information about the person you are writing about. This includes their background, early life, education, career achievements, notable events in their life, personal traits, and any other relevant details that will help paint a clear picture of who they are.
By collecting all this key information, you will be able to create a comprehensive and compelling biography that truly captures the essence of the person you are writing about.
One of the key elements of a compelling biography essay is a strong narrative that engages the reader from start to finish. Consider the chronological order of events in the subject’s life and how they connect to form a coherent story. Start by introducing the subject and setting the stage for the narrative to unfold.
Use vivid descriptions and details to bring the subject to life and make their story more relatable to readers. Highlight key milestones, challenges, and achievements in the subject’s life that showcase their character and resilience. Include anecdotes and personal insights that provide a deeper understanding of who the subject is and what drives them.
Structure the narrative in a way that keeps the reader engaged and eager to learn more about the subject’s journey. Consider using storytelling techniques such as foreshadowing, flashbacks, and cliffhangers to maintain suspense and build anticipation. Ultimately, a strong narrative will help bring the subject’s biography to life and make it a memorable read for your audience.
One of the most effective ways to make your biography essay compelling is to engage readers with stories. People are naturally drawn to narratives, and weaving personal stories into your biography can create a powerful connection with your audience.
Share anecdotes, experiences, and pivotal moments from the subject’s life that showcase their character, challenges, triumphs, and growth. These stories humanize the subject and help readers relate to them on a personal level.
Remember to use descriptive language, vivid imagery, and emotional detail to immerse readers in the story. By painting a vivid picture of the subject’s life through compelling stories, you can capture the reader’s attention and keep them engaged from start to finish.
One of the most captivating aspects of a biography is witnessing the growth and development of the subject. Highlight the key milestones, challenges, and transformative moments that shaped your subject’s journey. Show how they evolved as a person, overcame obstacles, and learned from their experiences.
Include details about pivotal moments that influenced their beliefs, values, and decisions. Whether it’s personal growth, professional success, or emotional development, showcasing your subject’s growth adds depth and complexity to their story. Use anecdotes, quotes, and reflections to illustrate their evolution over time.
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One of the key elements to include in a compelling biography essay is the individual’s personal development over time. Highlighting the growth, challenges, and experiences that have shaped the person into who they are today can add depth and authenticity to the narrative. Consider including anecdotes or specific examples that demonstrate how the individual has evolved and overcome obstacles in their journey.
Illustrate how the individual has grown professionally, personally, or intellectually over the years. | |
Showcase the obstacles or setbacks the person has faced and how they have persevered through them. | |
Describe impactful experiences or pivotal moments that have influenced the individual’s development. |
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The writing process of a biography begins after you have researched your subject and compiled the information you will share with readers. An engaging first paragraph not only introduces readers to your subject but also provides a glimpse into the biography as a whole. Be concise, accurate and interesting in your introduction in order to capture your reader's attention.
Introduce your subject, including her name and any pseudonyms.
Add the subject's dates of birth and death (if applicable).
Include context, which tells the location where your subject was born, her nationality and ethnicity.
Explain briefly why your subject is important or notable. Give a one- or two-sentence summary of what she accomplished.
Tie in the subject's accomplishments to your reader's experience. Let the reader know why your subject is or was significant to others.
Lalaena Gonzalez-Figueroa has worked as a freelance writer since 1997. She has contributed to a number of print and online publications including BabyZone.com, "The Tallahassee Democrat," "Broker Agent Magazine" and "MD News" magazine." She also writes creative fiction for adults and children. Gonzalez-Figueroa graduated in 1998 from Florida State University with a Bachelor of Arts in creative writing.
Table of Contents
How to start a biography essay.
A biography is a short but elaborate description of a selected person’s life. It details and follows one’s journey from birth to the present time. An effective biography will be brief but it will also capture the most important aspects and experiences of one’s entire life. It is necessary for the biography writer to acknowledge whose life the biography is about, in the introductory part of the paper. The thesis statement will usually be in the introduction, and will summarize the individual’s ‘big picture’ and most important aspects of his or her life.
A biography is often not always about oneself. It can be about someone else. In the latter case, one needs to gather enough data about the person whose biography is to be written. Such data can come from newspapers, internet articles, existing biographies, autobiographies, and government documents other sources. Interviewing the person’s family members, friends, and can also be critical sources of information. Once one has already established sources, he can now settle down and summarize the information in an interesting manner, in an essay form.
The body paragraphs of the essay must capture four key elements relating to the individual. First, the chronological experiences of events in his or her life are arranged in a timeline. Each significant event in the person’s life will be highlighted in an interesting manner. Not all events will be highlighted but the key aspects must be pointed out including the date and place of birth, the names of parents, siblings and close friends. Additionally, the Alma Mata will also be noted, among many other critical elements touching on early life.
One of the other important parts that must be included in a biography is the subject’s work or career progress. If the subject’s life is closely connected to their career, the writer can break up the biography into sections such that the various job positions are clearly identified. An individual who has worked in many senior positions will imply a long and detailed description of such positions and the periods for which each of such positions were occupied.
It is of utmost importance, when writing a biography, to indicate one or two features that make the person to stand out, or interesting. A comedian for instance, will be noted for his or her comic skills. A politician, a law enforcer, a teacher, a polite individual, gambler, dictator, an activist, artist, irresponsible person, entrepreneur, a daredevil among others will be identified as such. An individual can be identified as being special by their profession, character, or contribution to society in various ways.
The accomplishments must also be outlined. The biographical events touching on major accomplishments such as academic, sports, career accomplishments, among others have to be arranged in such a way that they follow and mirror each other. For instance, the writer can recognize the subject’s accomplishments by age 15, then by 30, by age 40 and so on. This has to be arranged systematically and the accomplishments must be linked to how the person’s current life is. If the person is already dead, the roles that his or her accomplishments played in the person’s later life have to be identified.
It is often a good practice when writing a biography to include flashbacks in the subject’s life. If one has noted, in the timeline that the subject excelled at college games or became a prominent professor, it is important to link this to the person’s earlier sporting or academic performance at high school or elementary level. For example, if he became a professional footballer, one must connect this with the fact that the subject previously took active part in games at high school level, as a games captain or such other notable achievements.
Furthermore, any event that changed the person’s life in one way or the other must be noted. In some instances, the subject overcame obstacles such as coming from a poor family but ending up being wealthy, such as Oprah Winfrey, or being born with major disability such as Nick Vujicic but overcoming such disability to become an influential motivational speaker and entrepreneur. Other individuals took big risks or gambles which transformed their lives. This, too, has to be noted in the biography.
In conclusion, a good biography essay will brief detail the events and experiences in a person’s life. Such details need to be detailed as a narration and in prose form. Any quotes used in the biography, such as interviews, must be cited appropriately. From the information contained in the body of the biography, it should be possible to draw conclusion on whether the world would be a better or worse place if the person had not been alive. A candid biography of Adolf Hitler, for instance, will likely conclude that the world would have been a better place without him. On the other hand, a biography on Nelson Mandela, Neil Armstrong, The Wright Brothers, among other notables would point to their great role and positive contribution to society.
Introduction – identification of the person whose biography is to be written.
Conclusion – how the world benefited from the person.
After staying up until 4 a.m. to craft a speech he hoped would have the same impact as the Gettysburg Address, MLK went off-script for his most iconic words.
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The best-laid plans are often better off ignored—at least that was the case with Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963.
Widely regarded as one of the world’s most “transformative and influential” speeches alongside Abraham Lincoln ’s 1863 Gettysburg Address and Winston Churchill ’s 1940 “Blood, toil, tears and sweat” speech , the impact of King’s words that hot summer afternoon in Washington D.C. struck a chord with civil rights advocates near and far and became a powerful rallying cry.
King’s speech added fuel to the ongoing movement for racial equality. Its impact helped pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 , outlawing racial segregation in the United States.
But those four famous words almost didn’t make it into the speech.
Before he stepped up to the podium that day, King was already known on the national stage for his civil rights work. He had already been a leader in the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 and the Greensboro sit-in movement in 1960 and was known for his 1963 Letter from Birmingham Jail , where he was taken after a peaceful demonstration.
The Baptist minister, who was also the head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was known as a powerful orator, but the bulk of his audience had been within the Black community. Fellow civil rights activists A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin had reached out to him and other prominent figures in the movement to organize the march followed by three hours of speeches.
The three major television networks at the time—ABC, CBS, and NBC—had all promised to cover the event, so King knew the stakes were high. Even though he was limited to five minutes, his goal was clear: To make a speech with impact on the nation “like the Gettysburg address.”
To carefully craft the right words, King turned to his inner circle. Stanley Levison and Clarence Jones, two of his advisers, wrote the first draft. “When it came to my speech drafts, [King] often acted like an interior designer,” Jones said, according to The Guardian . “I would deliver four strong walls, and he would use his God-given abilities to furnish the place so it felt like home.”
Even though they knew the importance of the speech, they were only able to gather as a group at the Willard Hotel the evening before the speech. “We met in the lobby rather than in a suite, under the assumption that the lobby would be harder to wiretap,” Jones wrote in The Washington Post . “It was with this odd start, hiding in plain sight, that 12 hours before the March on Washington began, Martin gathered with a small group of advisers to hammer out the themes of his speech.”
Even though King was happy with the draft, he had wanted to get as much input as possible. “So that evening he had a cross-section of advisers present to fill any blind spots,” Jones wrote. “Cleveland Robinson, Walter Fauntroy, Bernard Lee, Ralph Abernathy , Lawrence Reddick, and I joined him, along with Wyatt Walker and Bayard Rustin , who were in and out of our deliberations.”
Of course, everyone had their own take, which became a challenge to juggle. “As we ate sandwiches, our suggestions tumbled out,” Jones remembers. “Cleve, Lawrence, and I saw the speech as an opportunity to stake an ideological and political marker in the debate over civil rights and segregation. Others were more inclined for Martin to deliver a sort of church sermon, steeped in parables and Bible quotes. Some, however, worried that biblical language would obfuscate the real message—reform of the legal system. And still others wanted Martin to direct his remarks to the students, Black and white, who would be marching that day.”
The idea of the “dream” had actually been one that King long talked about, almost like a theme throughout his previous speeches. Walker had the strongest opinion: “Don’t use the lines about ‘I have a dream.’ It’s trite, it’s cliche. You’ve used it too many times already.”
Respecting his view, the mention of the dream was cut from the speech. At 4 a.m., King finally went to bed. “I am now going upstairs to my room to counsel with my Lord,” he said, according to The Guardian . “I will see you all tomorrow.”
While everything was meticulously planned, the organizers still worried there might not be the turnout they hoped for. After all, they set a goal of 100,000 to attend the March on Washington.
But on August 28—despite the heat in the nation’s capital, which reached 87 degrees Fahrenheit with uncomfortable humidity—people started showing up en masse. Among them were notable names: Josephine Baker , Marlon Brando , Harry Belafonte , Sammy Davis Jr. , James Garner , Charlton Heston, Paul Newman , and Sidney Poitier .
“It was truly staggering. Estimates vary widely, depending on the agenda of who was keeping count, but those of us who were involved in planning the March put the number at a minimum of 250,000,” Jones wrote in his book Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech that Transformed a Nation . “They showed up to connect with the Movement, to draw strength from the speakers and from each other.”
By the time it was King’s turn, some people had already headed out because of the stifling heat. But nothing was holding him back from his moment on the national stage. “I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation,” he first addressed the crowd.
Then, much like the Lincoln speech he sought inspiration from that started “Four score and seven years ago,” King said “Five score years ago,” and highlighted the importance of the Emancipation Proclamation . “But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free,” he continued, before describing the state of African American life in the United States.
Then he moved into the purpose of the march: “In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, Black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
“It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment,” he continued, emphasizing why it was essential for imminent action. “And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”
While his words were impactful, they didn’t have the tremendous punch he was hoping for. But then gospel singer Mahalia Jackson , who had sung “I’ve Been ’Buked and I’ve Been Scorned” and was close to King, instinctively shouted out, “Tell ’em about the dream, Martin.”
Throwing the script out the window, he turned to his dream.
“Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream,” he started before launching into his most famous passage:
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal. I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.”
Building up a cadence that had the crowd engaged and enthused, he concluded: “And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, Black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’”
Looking back on the day, Jones notes a shift as soon King threw all the prepared remarks out the window: “When he was reading from his text, he stood like a lecturer. But from the moment he set that text aside, he took on the stance of a Baptist preacher.” And that was the kind of messaging America needed to hear.
Even King looked back on all the long hours preparing and realized that nothing resonated more than reading a crowd and trusting his instinct.
“I started out reading the speech, and I read it down to a point,” helater said. “The audience response was wonderful that day… and all of a sudden this thing came to me that… I’d used many times before… ‘I have a dream.’ And I just felt that I wanted to use it here… I used it, and at that point I just turned aside from the manuscript altogether. I didn’t come back to it.”
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Introduction.
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Editors: Barbara Bavis, Bibliographic and Research Instruction Librarian, Law Library of Congress
Elizabeth Fulford, Senior Network Specialist, Network Development and MARC Standards Office
Note: This guide is a collection of the Library of Congress Research Guides produced as a part of the American Women Series, originally published as American Women: A Library of Congress Guide for the Study of Women's History and Culture in the United States (Library of Congress, 2001).
Created: December 16, 2021
Last Updated: December 16, 2021
This research guide gathers together and updates most of the topical and format-based sections of the online presentation of 456-page print resource guide entitled, American Women: A Library of Congress Guide for the Study of Women's History and Culture in the United States , which was published in December 2001 by the Library of Congress in cooperation with the University Press of New England.
Each component of this series is published as an individual research guide and can be accessed from the following links:
Preface by carla d. hayden.
The Library of Congress has a long tradition of collecting women’s history materials in a variety of formats and subject areas. As noted in the preface to the first American Women guide, published in 2001, “For two hundred years, the Library of Congress…has been gathering materials necessary to tell the stories of women in America.” 1 The Library identified women’s suffrage as a targeted subject for acquisitions with surprising foresight, and it continues to build and strengthen its holdings to document the diversity of American women’s lives.
In 1903 the sixth Librarian of Congress, Ainsworth Spofford, convinced his friend, suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony, to donate her personal collection of more than 250 books and other printed material to the Library. As Anthony prepared her donation, she inscribed many of the books with commentary on their history and importance, creating a valuable record of her reflections on a lifetime of activism.
The Library’s curators soon began amassing manuscripts, scrapbooks, photographs, and other items relating to the struggle for women’s rights, including the papers of Carrie Chapman Catt, Mary Church Terrell, and other suffragists, as well as the records of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and the National Woman’s Party. Together these items form a compelling documentary history of the suffrage campaign from its early connections to the abolition and temperance movements to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment—known as the Anthony Amendment—in August 1920. In fighting for the right to vote, women formed national political organizations and developed new strategies for protest. Women had always represented a vital, but often unacknowledged, part of the nation’s history, and the suffrage movement brought them into the public sphere in new and more visible ways.
Scholarship in women’s history, gender history, women’s studies, and related fields is essential to how we understand American history. This recently revised and updated American Women guide highlights new collection materials and research tools and makes these resources more easily discoverable by researchers. We hope that this guide continues to inspire researchers of all levels in making new discoveries and charting new perspectives on American women.
Carla D. Hayden , Librarian of Congress
Smithsonian Voices
From the Smithsonian Museums
NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
Laura Katzman Receives $3,000 and Will Present Lecture Oct. 15
Gabrielle Obusek
The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery has announced Laura Katzman, professor of art history at James Madison University, as the winner of its 2024 Director’s Essay Prize. Her essay, “Lorenzo Homar’s Cine Alba : An Intimate Portrait of North American Artists in Nineteen-Fifties Puerto Rico,” was chosen for its interdisciplinary contributions to the fields of American art, biography, history and cultural identity. The text was published in the book La mirada en construcción: Ensayos sobre cultura visual (2022), which was edited by José Orlando Sued and René Rodríguez-Ramírez.
Founded in 2019, the Director’s Essay Prize fosters leading research in the field of visual biography and American portraiture. The 2024 prize was juried by PORTAL, the Portrait Gallery’s scholarly center. Its advisors include Martha S. Jones, the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor, professor of history and a professor at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, and Julio Capó, associate professor of history at Florida International University.
“In mining numerous public and private archives, Katzman unveils new understandings and an astute analysis of the work, the artist and his subjects and their lives. In so doing, she offers a nuanced reading of the work and demonstrates how it reflects key social, political and cultural moments in Puerto Rican history and, especially, its place in cultural nationalism. Katzman’s engaging, beautifully written essay is a masterwork in interdisciplinary research and analysis, and the text will serve as an excellent model for future works on portraiture.”
Katzman was the Terra Foundation Visiting Professor at the Freie Universität Berlin from 2018 to 2019 and served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Research and Scholars Center. An internationally recognized scholar of 20th-century documentary photography on the U.S. continent and in Puerto Rico, she curated the widely acclaimed retrospective “Ben Shahn, On Nonconformity” for the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid (2023–2024). She is the editor of The Museum of the Old Colony: An Art Installation by Pablo Delano , principal author of Re-viewing Documentary: The Photographic Life of Louise Rosskam, and co-author of the award-winning Ben Shahn’s New York: The Photography of Modern Times . Katzman’s current research examines a post-World War II photographic archive that U.S. artists created for the Puerto Rican government at a time of profound industrial transformation in the Caribbean nation and in the context of its complex colonial relations with the United States.
“The Director’s Essay Prize offers the exciting opportunity to bring wider attention to the extraordinary work of Lorenzo Homar and his collaborations with North American artists at a critical period in Cold War history—a fateful moment for Puerto Rico’s ambiguous political status, distinct cultural identities and long-standing struggles for self-determination.”
Katzman will deliver a lecture on her prize-winning essay , “Lorenzo Homar’s Cine Alba: An Intimate Portrait of North American Artists in Nineteen-Fifties Puerto Rico” Tuesday, Oct. 15, at 5:30 p.m. in the Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium at the National Portrait Gallery, Eighth and G Streets N.W., Washington, D.C.
The Director’s Essay Prize complements the Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition , a triennial juried contemporary art exhibition established in 2006. The prize is specifically dedicated to supporting the next wave of written scholarship on portraiture.
Gabrielle Obusek | READ MORE
Gabrielle Obusek is the public affairs specialist for the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery.
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Secured with SSL. Biographies are how we learn information about another human being's life. Whether you want to start writing a biography about a famous person, historical figure, or an influential family member, it's important to know all the elements that make a biography worth both writing and reading.
How to Write a Biography in 8 Steps Using Key Elements. Choose your presentation format. Choose your subject and conduct research. Develop compelling themes and motifs. Conduct relevant interviews. Develop a clear structure. Craft captivating prose. Build a balance of objectivity and empathy.
A biography is an account of someone's life written by someone else.While there is a genre known as a fictional biography, for the most part, biographies are, by definition, nonfiction. Generally speaking, biographies provide an account of the subject's life from the earliest days of childhood to the present day or, if the subject is deceased, their death.
1. Go for a chronological structure. Start chronologically from the subject's birth to their death or later life. Use the timeline of the person's life to structure the biography. Start with birth and childhood. Then, go into young adulthood and adulthood.
2. Introduce yourself… like a real person. This is one of the most important pieces of understanding how to write a personal biography. Always start with your name. When many people start learning how to write a bio, they skip this important part. People need to know who you are before they learn what you do.
Let's break down the process step by step. 1. Choose Your Subject. Decide who you want to write about. It could be a well-known celebrity, a historical figure, or someone close to you. In addition to figuring out who you're writing about, this is also the step where you figure out why you want to write about them.
7. Get feedback and polish the text. If you're going to publish your own biography, you'll have to polish it to professional standards. After leaving your work to rest for a while, look at it with fresh eyes and edit your own manuscript eliminating passive voice, filler words, and redundant adverbs.
Ibrahim Akturk. March 29, 2022. A biography essay is a type of academic writing that tells the story of someone's life, typically focusing on their achievements, struggles, and impact on the world. In this article, we'll provide you with a step-by-step guide on how to write a compelling biography essay that engages readers and tells the ...
How to write a biography essay. After you choose a subject for your essay, it is time to begin writing. Let's look at the biography essay outline you need to follow. Introduction of a biographical essay. The first thing you need to understand is how to start a biography essay. Every academic paper always starts with an introduction.
A biography essay delves into the life of a person. Thanks to it, the writer can tell their story through engaging writing style. This essay type is more than just a collection of dates and events. It's a detailed exploration of the personal and professional achievements, challenges, and impact on the world. A biography writing requires a ...
Follow these steps to create a meaningful and well-structured biography essay: 1. Choose a Compelling Topic. The first step is crucial. Select a person whose life and work resonate with you. Your passion will shine through in your writing, making the essay more engaging. 2. Research Thoroughly.
First, determine the scope of the person's life (years), pick a central theme, and write out the biography using the classic narrative arc. Many college courses include an essay writing component, and a biography essay is one of the types of essays that you may encounter, especially if you are taking courses in liberal arts disciplines such ...
Download Article. 1. Mention the person's name, birth date, and place of birth. Start by including key biographical details like the person's full name and their birth date. You can also provide the person's place of birth, especially if it will give readers context for the rest of the biography.
Biography essay writing is a responsible task that aims at showing a well-acclaimed person from the best light. Therefore, you need to write about one's life as you would about your mother - with maximum details and showing respect for that person. So follow our advice to compose an A+ biography essay that you and your audience will enjoy ...
Whether about yourself or someone else, write one easily with these key parts of a biography. Dictionary Thesaurus Sentences Grammar Vocabulary Usage ... A biography essay is a specific type of informative essay. It can be helpful to use a biographical sketch approach when creating this type of biography.
The main purpose of writing a biography essay is in the thesis statement. Whether you write biography essay topics about famous people or yourself, you have to make your personal thoughts of what you think the character is recognizable for. A statement should be placed at the end of the introductory paragraph.
This means that your biography essay outline will consist of these components such as: Introduction. Body Paragraph no 1. Body paragraph no 2. Body paragraph no 3. Conclusion. Now, you have a clear understanding of the biography writing format. It's time to learn about how to write a biography paper.
A biography (BYE-og-ruh-fee) is a written account of one person's life authored by another person. A biography includes all pertinent details from the subject's life, typically arranged in a chronological order. The word biography stems from the Latin biographia, which succinctly explains the word's definition: bios = "life" + graphia = "write."
The process of writing a biography can be easier with a map to follow. You can follow these steps to write a biography: 1. Research your subject. The first step to writing a great biography is to spend time conducting extensive research on the person you're writing about, their career, their family and other information about them.
It means that your biography essay outline will include the following chapters: Introduction. Body paragraph #1. Body paragraph #2. Body paragraph #3. Conclusion. Now that you know what is biography essay and how to create a good biography essay outline, it is time to finally find out how to write a biography essay.
Expert Tips for Writing. When crafting a compelling biography essay, consider these expert tips to make your writing stand out: 1. Start with a captivating introduction that sets the tone for the rest of the essay. 2. Research thoroughly to gather accurate information and interesting anecdotes about the subject. 3.
Add the subject's dates of birth and death (if applicable). Include context, which tells the location where your subject was born, her nationality and ethnicity. Explain briefly why your subject is important or notable. Give a one- or two-sentence summary of what she accomplished. Tie in the subject's accomplishments to your reader's experience.
In conclusion, a good biography essay will brief detail the events and experiences in a person's life. Such details need to be detailed as a narration and in prose form. Any quotes used in the biography, such as interviews, must be cited appropriately. From the information contained in the body of the biography, it should be possible to draw ...
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Novel on Yellow Paper (1936). . . . . . . . . . Stevie Smith's novels. Stevie didn't gain notice with her first printed poems, and an editor told her to try to write a novel instead. In six weeks, she finished her first, Novel on Yellow Paper, published in 1936. Her first poetry collection, A Good Time Was Had By All, arrived a year later.
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Founded in 2019, the Director's Essay Prize fosters leading research in the field of visual biography and American portraiture. The 2024 prize was juried by PORTAL, the Portrait Gallery's ...
Columbus Blue Jackets star forward Johnny Gaudreau and his brother, Matthew, died Thursday night, the team said. Police said they were killed while biking Thursday night in Oldmans Township, New ...