English ~ Biography

• Biography is the life story of a person written by someone else. 
• It is simply the history of a lifetime.
• It narrates the most important facts of someone's life, his or her childhood, adolescence, military service, wars he or she lived through, educational background, proffessional life, marriage, children, and most outstanding achievements.
• In addition, it tells anecdotes, memories, trips and clearly cherished moments. It is our most precious legacy to the world and mainly to our family.
• A biography involves a whole life, building a bridge between generations, bringing us close to our grand children, great grand children and future generations, planting in their hearts the pride of belonging.
• Social Function : to set as model of well-known figure's thought, heroism, success, etc.
• Generic Structure :
  
  1. Orientation (who were involved in the story, when and where)
  2. Events (tell what happened in a chronological order)
• It should also :
  
  1. Mention figure's name and their background.
  2. Mention characteristic and physical appearance of the figure.
  3. Mention action and good things of well-known figure.
  4. Mention sentences related to life effort, professionalism in working and recent event / phenomenon.
• Language features :
  
  1. Using words related to life effort, professionalism in working and recent event / phenomenon containing past tense.
  2. Using nouns.
  3. Using modal auxiliary verbs.
• Here are some suggestions and steps in writing biography :
  
  1. Decide whom you want to write about, your parents, grandparents, great grandparents, ancestors, other relatives, friends, idols, heroes, yourself or any other special person.
  2. Collect as much information as you can, from the birth to the most relevant facts.
  3. Organize your thoughts before starting to write, think of that part of the person's life you would like to highlight.
  4. When writing about somebody else, describe his or her appearance, habits, features and way of talking. If you do not remember a name, use replacements.
  5. Edit the biography ; read it aloud to feel of the rhythm and the sound of it, it will also help you notice if you are repeating information.