Yikes, that sounds a little dry, doesn't it? Nonetheless, while researching the subject of your biography, you’ll want to collect all the basic facts of your subject’s life experience.
These include:
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Date and place of birth and death
Family information
Lifetime accomplishments
Major events of life
Effects/impact on society, historical significance
You will choose your person because you think he or she is interesting, so you certainly don’t want to burden your paper with an inventory of boring facts. The last thing you want to do is bore your teacher. Your goal is to impress your reader!
As always, you’ll want to start off with a bang and captivate your reader.
It's a good idea to begin with a really interesting statement, a little known fact, or really intriguing event. After all, your teacher has probably read other biographies concerning your subject. You’ll want yours to stand out.
Considering that, you should avoid starting out with a standard but boring line like:
"Meriwether Lewis was born in Virginia in 1774."
Try starting with something like this:
"Late one afternoon in October, 1809, Meriwether Lewis arrived at a small log cabin nestled deep in the Tennessee Mountains. By sunrise on the following day, he was dead, having suffered gunshot wounds to the head and chest. His body was also slashed several times with a shaving razor."
This opening is much more enticing, isn’t it? You can find lots of interesting things like this on the Internet. As always, be sure to keep track of your sources!
You’ll have to make sure your beginning is motivating, but it should also be relevant. The sentences will appear gratuitous if they don’t lead to a point, so the next sentence or two should lead in to your thesis statement, or main message of your biography.
“It was a tragic end to a life that had so deeply affected the course of history in the United States. Meriwether Lewis, a driven and often tormented soul, led an expedition of discovery that expanded a young nation’s economic potential, increased its scientific understanding, and enhanced its worldwide reputation.”
Now that you’ve created an impressive beginning, you’ll want to continue the flow. Find more intriguing details about the man and his work, and weave them into the composition.
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Examples of interesting details:
Some people believed that Lewis and Clark would encounter elephants in the western wilderness, having misunderstood the wooly mammoth bones discovered in the United States.
The expedition resulted in the discovery and description of 122 new animal species and subspecies.
Lewis was a hypochondriac.
His death is still an unsolved mystery, although it was ruled a suicide.
Fill the body of your biography with material that gives insight to your subject’s personality. For instance, in a biography about Meriwether Lewis, you would ask what traits or events motivated him to embark on such a monumental exercise.
Questions to consider in your biography:Was there something in your subject’s childhood that shaped his/her personality?
Was there a personality trait that drove him/her to succeed or impeded his progress?
What adjectives would you use to describe him/her?
What were some turning points in this life?
What was his/her impact on history?
The final paragraph will summarize your main points and re-assert your main claim about your subject. It should point out your main points, re-name the person you’re writing about, but it should not repeat specific examples.
As always, proofread your paper and check for errors. Create a bibliography and title page according to your teacher's instructions. Consult a style guide for proper documentation.
