Features of a biography year 4

Exploring biographies

Watch: What is a biography?

A biography is a non-fiction text about someone's life.

Biographies are true pieces of text, based on fact, so biographers (the people who write biographies) have to do a lot of research. They use websites, letters, photographs, diaries and newspapers to help them.

  • Because biographies are written by someone else, they are written in the third person(//).

  • They are usually written in chronological order (the order in which events actually happened).

For example, watch this clip. It gives a biography of the scientist Marie Curie.

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Watch: Biography of Stephen Hawking

Even though biographers do lots of research, they can only guess at what it was like to be that person, or the thoughts and feelings the person had.

If the person they want to write about, or anyone who knew them, is still alive, biographers sometimes carry out an interview to ask lots of questions about the person's life.

Here's another biography of a scientist, this time Professor Stephen Hawking.

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biography

What Is Biography? Definition, Usage, and Literary Examples

Biography Definition

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.”

Since the advent of the written word, historical writings have offered information about real people, but it wasn’t until the 18th century that biographies evolved into a separate literary genre. Autobiographies and memoirs fall under the broader biography genre, but they are distinct literary forms due to one key factor: the subjects themselves write these works. Biographies are popular source materials for documentaries, television shows, and motion pictures.

The History of Biographies

The biography form has its roots in Ancient Rome and Greece. In 44 BCE, Roman writer C

Biography

Written account of a person's life

For other uses, see Biography (disambiguation).

A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of their life, including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of the subject's personality.

Biographical works are usually non-fiction, but fiction can also be used to portray a person's life. One in-depth form of biographical coverage is called legacy writing. Works in diverse media, from literature to film, form the genre known as biography.

An authorized biography is written with the permission, cooperation, and at times, participation of a subject or a subject's heirs. An unauthorized biography is one written without such permission or participation. An autobiography is written by the person themselves, sometimes w

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