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How to Write a Biography: Capturing A Subject’s Life & Personality with Precision

A biography is a lengthy essay about a person by a writer that describes their personality, character and life experience in detail. Writing a biography is a hard job. It requires students to take many steps before and after completing the assignment. Before going straight to the steps of writing, it’s important to know what a biography is.

What is a Biography?

A biography is a non-fiction description of a famous personality, politician, actor or anyone with a significant achievement etc. The biography tells the story from birth to death or presents if the person of interest is not deceased. This personal story also reflects on the circumstances and their life experiences and learnings. In short, it’s a full detail of their life from day one to the last.

It’s a tough assignment for students because they need to select their favorite personalities and write about them. If you cannot write it, this blog will help you to write like a pro essay writers.

Crafting an Exceptional Biography: Tips and Tricks for Compelling Storytelling

For many students, composing a biography is hectic and requires ample time to produce a good write-up. Biographies should tell all when it comes to writing them perfectly with a balanced approach. Here we will discuss the tips and tricks to compose your biography writing assignment.

Choose your Favorite Personality

The first step in writing a biography is to choose your favorite personality that inspires you. Students may choose anyone they see fit the biography assignment requirements. You can write better if the person you choose to be featured in the biography has inspired you.

Secondly, writing about a famous personality offers various credible sources that will help fetch authentic information. A personality can be anyone, such as from media, politics, a business person or a scientist etc. Make your mind and choose the one you like the most and start working on it.

Examples of famous personalities

  • Michael Jackson

  • Adolf Hitler

  • Madonna 

  • Ryuichi Sakamoto 

  • Napoleon Bonaparte

  • Marlon Brando

  • Avicii

This list of famous politicians and artist bio examples mentioned above can be used for writing a biography assignment.

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Ask for a Permission to be Featured in a Biography

After choosing the personality, it’s time to ask for formal permission to use their name and important details. If the person you have decided to write a biography about is alive, then it’s a fairly simple way. You can contact them via email, phone or their management etc.

On the other hand, if the personality is deceased, ask for permission from their next of kin or grandchildren. This way, you have full access and legal permission to write about the person trouble-free. If you cannot receive permission, it’s better to leave the topic and choose a different name or personality to use. 

Select Credible Sources to Use

The next step is to research and decide what credible and authentic sources you’ll use for this purpose. It’s important to list what sources you will use and how authentic their credibility is. For example, your main source of information is a book, blog, newspaper editorial, journal or interview.

In choosing your sources for biography research, selecting only a handful of credible ones is important. There are many ways authentic data can be gathered, such as by reading from the following sources;

  • The New York Times

  • Time Magazine 

  • Personal letters

  • Diary of the Personality 

  • Photos of past or new

  • Documentaries 

  • Books written by other writers 

  • Face-to-face interviews or with someone who knows them

You can use these few sources and techniques to acquire credible information easily and use it accordingly.

Interview in person or with Close Relatives & Friends

When you select the sources that will be used for writing a biography, you may proceed to meet and interview your favorite personality. This stage is time-consuming because you might need more time to get their time. Furthermore, big celebrities or personalities have a huge PR team that looks after such interviews. You have to go through them patiently with effort and persistence.

You can also interview on digital platforms by emailing or calling them. This will build your trust and provide you with an opportunity for one-on-one interviews. For an in-person interview, you may ask permission to record them through a camera or voice recording tool or application.

In case of death, you can meet their immediate family members or close friends for a better opinion. Friends and family members of the deceased might offer you information unique and unwritten in the textbooks. You can also ask for a combined interview with friends and family members. This way, you can get collective information all at once.

Visit Places, Locations Important to your Subject

After going through all the above steps, you should visit the places and locations your subject likes. These places might be their favorite restaurant, beach, hotel or cafe. Such locations are important to your personality, so visiting them makes you understand them better.

Also, these favorite places of your subject put you in their shoes and help you understand their decision and why. One of the best practices is to visit the hometown where they were born and studied, such as primary school. This step lets you write an outstanding biography with good details. These factual details help connect your audience with your subject in real time and provide a closer look.

Tracing the Timeline of the Subject

The next logical step in how to write a biography is to study the timeline. It would help if you considered when your subject was born. Also, please focus on the period when they were growing up and what were the circumstances and social values. How cultural, social, political and personal values affect the personality you’re studying. Also, mention when the subject fell in love, married or lost their parents etc. This way, a seamless timeline can be created by adding important and relevant details from day one to the day they died.

This tactic will help you trace and present a timeline similar to the one your subject experienced. Your audience will experience the same ambience when you do this perfectly.

It takes countless hours and great imagination and research to create such a strong timeline. You may need a research paper writing service to do the complete work smoothly.

Write in Chronological Order

Students also need to write their biography assignments in chronological order. You should start and unfold the events surrounding the subject from the day they were born and the circumstances leading to death. This will help you demonstrate a person’s life from the least important to the most significant event. If the subject is deceased, then write what happened after their death. But if they’re alive, write about what situation they are in now, like living a secluded life etc., happily. All events should be documented properly with exact dates and context.

Mention the Achievements and Hurdles your Subject Faced

In the next step, you need to mention the best achievements of your subject. These achievements might be winning Oscars, participating in the human rights movement etc. Providing your audience with these facts and milestones of your subject’s life helps deepen understanding. These accomplishments also help in deeper understanding at a psychological level.

Additionally, mention the hurdles and how the personality you’ve selected overcame will motivate your audience. Your biography should be a combination of failures and achievements. This will make it more genuine to the core.

Add Your Personal Opinion

The last step in writing a biography is to add your opinions in your personal essay about the subject’s life and achievements. Since you are writing a biography from your perspective based on the research and facts, your opinion is important. Your opinion should also mention reasons why you selected the subject and what inspirations you received. A writer’s thoughts make it a personalized individual’s work.

You can also draw comparisons between your life, achievements or hurdles with the subjects. This way, your audience will be more likely to understand the reasons behind the biography writing.

Proofread, Edit & Publish

The last part of composing a biography is to proofread your document. There are two ways of doing this step such as;

  • Show it to the subject

  • Make your friends, family member, or an expert read it.

The first and best way of doing the proofreading and objective feedback is to show it to your subject if they are alive. This way, the subject can collaborate and guide you about what details are irrelevant or unnecessary. Since they are the subject or person of interest, they are the only credible source that will make your work worthy of reading.

In the second scenario, where the subject is deceased, you can ask your friends, classmates or a family member to help you out. Writing a biography becomes easy when you have some expert support for proofreading and suggesting edits.

After going through all these steps, it’s time to edit your biography based on mutual suggestions. Submit the biography to your college professor for evaluation and grade awarding.

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Mock Example of Biography

Making a biographical narrative is a back-breaking task. Students go through waves of challenges and are still looking for sample bios for their work. Here we will present a mock example for these students for learning purposes.

“Lewis Hamilton is the greatest driver of all time (GOAT) and seven times Formula One World Champion. From the beginning of his career, he has dominated the motorsport world with his exceptional fast-driving skills.

Lewis Hamilton was born on 1st July 1985 in Stevenage, United Kingdom. He started his racing career with radio-controlled cars at the young age of 5 years. From there, he raced with the karting cars and won every category of four-wheel racing. He won Formula A, Formula Super A, Formula 3, Formula 2 and Formula 1 championship.

His F1 breakthrough came in 2007 when Mclaren Racing awarded him a contract after departing driver Kimi Raikkonen left to join Ferrari. Lewis Hamilton lost the championship in 2007 by just one point and won the next year his maiden championship.

Lewis Hamilton continued his dominance when he joined the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team. He won the championship in 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2019, and his last championship was in 2020. He missed his 8th championship in 2021 by just 3 points in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix by Max Verstappen.

Apart from his superb on-track performance, he is the most active celebrity raising awareness on human rights and racism. He supported the black lives matter campaign and worked tirelessly throughout his career against racism. Lewis Hamilton lives an exemplary life of a socially responsible athlete and a celebrity. His work inspires a new generation to make a difference and will serve as a good example for many decades to come.”

Conclusion

This guideline has all the features that students may use for composing their assignments. Students face a lot of problems when they are writing a biography for a college assignment. If it’s still too difficult to compose, they should ask for external help from biography writing services. There are countless benefits of using such options such as;

  • On-time delivery of assignments regardless of the day and time

  • 100% authentic work

  • Cost-free revisions and prompt response

When going through a rough patch like this, you can use perfect essay writing to make your work exceptional. Our professional essay writers are happy to help you 24/7 at the lowest prices.

FAQs
What is a biography? How to write an autobiography essay? Does a biography have paragraphs? What is a format of a biography?
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