What Does A Writer Is Include in a Biography? There are certain situations in life where you’ll be asked to write about people – either about yourself or someone else – and knowing what information to include in a biography can be a helpful first step. Sometimes a person’s life is so full of rich details and interesting facts that it’s difficult to know what to include and what to leave out; but, there are some guidelines to follow that will help you write a biography. Deciding What to Include in a Biography First of all, consider the length of the biography – this will help determine how much, or how little, information you should include, and how in-depth that information should be. For example, a simple paragraph will contain much more general, basic facts than a biography that’s several pages long. For a basic paragraph, your biography should probably include facts like: Date and place of birth (and death, if applicable) Major achievements Education Work facts An overview of what makes the person significant What is included in a biography will become more complex as the biography gets longer: the more words you have to use, the more facts you can consider for inclusion. A biography that’s several pages long will probably go into more detail about the person’s history and what events throughout life made them who they were. Consider the Audience for the Biography The key to writing a great biography is really found within this idea: choose facts that are both relevant and interesting to your audience. In order to do this, you should consider why the biography is needed, and who will be reading it, and then focus on those areas of the person’s life that the audience will likely want to know about. If you’re writing a biography that will be sent out in a company-wide email in order to introduce a new employee to his co-workers, you’ll probably write more about the person’s work history and experience, with perhaps a few personal facts thrown in that will help the co-workers get to know him on a personal level. However, such a biography probably wouldn’t contain exhaustive detail about his parents, for example, and what they did, and how they influenced him while he was growing up. Such information isn’t really appropriate for the situation or for the target audience. On the other hand, that information might be highly relevant if you’re writing a biography that will be used in a psychological study of the person. Writing for an Unknown Audience Of course, you won’t always know who your target audience is – if you’re writing a book, for example, you won’t know who will be reading it. In these cases, it’s safe to assume that those who will read the biography are interested in the person, and that’s why they’re reading. In such a situation, a good approach is to focus primarily on what makes this person special, and target your research accordingly. A biography centered on someone who achieved a great scientific discovery may focus on the person’s scientific education, for example, and on his early experiments that led to the great discovery. It may also talk about how the discovery impacted his life for better or for worse. These are the things that someone reading about the subject are probably interested in learning. Customize What You Include in the Biography A biography can contain almost anything about a person – what information you include is up to you. Most biographies, regardless of their length and target audience, will contain basic facts like the time and places in which the person lived. But other, more involved details will depend largely on the situation – and on the writer. As you get into more involved biographies, you’ll find yourself faced with questions about what to include and how to talk about it. Just keep in mind why this person is interesting, and who might be interested enough to read the biography. Then write the biography based on the facts that will be most important to your audience and that tell the most about your subject.
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 14:55:52 +0000
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