How to Write Biographical Essay: About Yourself or Other Person
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.
What Is a Biographical 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 Main Purpose of a Bio Essay
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.
Biography Essay About Yourself
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.
Biography Essay About a Person
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.
How to Plan a Biography Essay Writing
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.
Choose Your Biographical Essay Topic
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:
- Marilyn Monroe: a fashion icon of all times.
- The history of the life of Queen Elizabeth II.
- Donald Trump: successful businessman and politician.
- Mother Teresa and her mission in life.
- Pope Francis: first American pope.
- Ludwig Beethoven and his eternal music.
- Malcolm X: a racism fighter.
- Elon Musk: the king of space.
- Greta Thunberg: young ecoactivist.
- Pele: a star of football.
- Albert Einstein: a face of science.
- Biography of my friend.
- A person in my life who inspired me.
- A history of the life of a member of my family.
- My autobiography.
Create a Biography Essay Outline
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:
- An introduction.
- 1st body paragraph.
- 2nd body paragraph.
- 3rd body paragraph.
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.
Conduct an Informational Research
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.
How to Start a Biography Essay?
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.
Biography Essay Hook
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.
Biography Thesis Statement
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.
Biography Essay Body Paragraph
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.
1st Body Paragraph About Childhood
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.
2nd Body Paragraph About School and College Period
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.
3rd Body Paragraph About Maturity
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.
Biography Essay Conclusion
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.
Relevance of the Person’s Work
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.
The Legacy
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.
The Major Achievements
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.
How to Write a Good Biography Essay: Advanced Tips
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.
- Rely only on facts. Even though in the biography essay you should state your personal opinion about the character you are describing, everything that is related to the person’s life should be 100% true. So never write any information without double-checking it in the sources.
- Don’t spare time for conducting research. A bio essay is a piece of academic writing, so you need to provide exclusive information about another person. Thus, you have to conduct thorough research on that person’s life and dig deeper.
- Create a strong personal statement. In fact, everyone can go to the Internet and read about a famous person’s life and major events. But if you want to make an authentic and outstanding paper, you should make a solid thesis statement and shape the rest of the essay to it.
- Provide evidence. Nothing can make a better impression on a reader than supporting facts with real examples. So if you want the audience to remember your essay, try methods of visualization.
- Make smooth transitions. When you are jumping from different time periods, it is important to make it as smooth as possible. Thus, you have to insert transition words and phrases that will make the overall text sound coherent.
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FAQ
How many paragraphs are in a biography essay?
If following a standard biography essay format, you will have to write five paragraphs: an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.
What is a biography essay structure?
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.
How to write an introduction for a biography essay?
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.
How do you write a biography essay?
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.
