Biography Essays: Your Complete Guide to Crafting Engaging Profiles

The biography essay is a type of paper where the author talks about someone’s life and activity, that is, presents a biography. This type of essay contains an overview of scientific and other sources on the selected topic. It is important to note that the biography essay story should cover relevant information and show one’s own attitude to it. The work demonstrates the researcher’s erudition, his ability to independently analyze, systematize, classify and summarize relevant information.

Basic requirements for a biography essay story:

• Completeness of reflection of the content of the literature on the matter;
• Correspondence of the basic theses and positions to the content of the literature;
• Correspondence of the author’s conclusions to the set task (whether the purpose of research is reached).

In order to complete an assignment, students need to follow a certain procedure for preparing and writing a biography essay story. This procedure is determined both by the purpose and objectives, as well as the structure of research. Thus, it is necessary to follow certain steps. Each of them is described in detail below.

The First Stage: Choice of Theme

This step is quite difficult because students can not usually determine the topic relevant to them, the level of complexity, and the degree of its development in the literature when trying to choose a theme from the proposed list. Therefore, often the main criterion for choosing a theme is to identify the interest based on one’s own erudition.

If there is some difficulty choosing a theme, it is recommended to seek help from the teacher. In this case, it is necessary to describe the range of problems of interest, and the teacher will select the appropriate themes and offer them to the student. In particular, there is another way to choose: you independently review the recommended literature and then find the appropriate topic in the list of proposed issues.

When selecting a theme, take into account that the entire theme of biography essay stories can be divided into several blocks. Structurally, the blocks correspond to the program topics of the discipline. The choice of theme can be based on the inherent abilities, knowledge, interest, etc., and the lack of them. In the first case, the work can be done at a high enough level. In the second case, the student will have to make much more effort, but then he will be able to discover abilities that were previously underdeveloped and, in addition, replenish his knowledge. It is necessary to inform the teacher in advance about the principle of picking up a matter so that the latter can provide effective assistance in working with publications, writing the text, and summarizing the general level of student knowledge when evaluating the biography paper story.

The Second Stage: Literature Processing 

At this stage, students compile lists of authors, write down the titles of publications, and get acquainted with periodicals, collections, which contain sources. The place, year of publication, cited pages are also recorded. Moreover, it is recommended to work with catalogs and reference books. Today, students have unlimited use of the Internet. When using this form of search, it is necessary to specify the used resources’ electronic source data.

The literary processing involves the ability to carefully read the text and create a synopsis. Therefore, it is necessary to follow some sequence of work, in particular:

• Read the writing carefully;
• Get a holistic impression of the material;
• Consciously assimilate what is read in order to highlight the main ideas, concepts, problems, etc.;
• Make a synopsis of the read text, which describes its main issues, provisions;
• Accumulate quotes, passages that emphasize these provisions, ideas, questions;
• Try to translate the writing in your own words.

After analyzing the literature, it is necessary to determine the purpose, objectives of the paper, as well as to outline a research plan. Sometimes it is necessary to clarify the topic – to expand or, conversely, to specify it.

The purpose of a biography essay story is to highlight the aspect of the theme that will be considered throughout the work. When understanding the goal, it is necessary to find out the theoretical value and scientific load of the chosen issue. Keep in mind that the goal and the topic are not the same, and the purpose of the biography essay story is not its topic.

The structure of the body part of a biography paper is arranged through the formulation of specific research objectives in accordance with the purpose of the research. This step is quite complex, but at the same time, it is the key element in the process of creating a biography essay story. And this makes sense, because the purposefulness of further work, its effectiveness, and its outcome depend on the quality of this stage. In this regard, the student must agree in advance on the purpose, objectives, and plan with the teacher for the possibility of their implementation and compliance with the sequence and logic in teaching the theme. The following should be taken into account: the purpose and tasks should be logically interconnected because the tasks of a biography story writing are essentially a consistent process of disclosing the goal.

Having defined the purpose, it is necessary to make the plan. The plan should contain such basic provisions as the introduction, relevance, problem statement, main part, conclusions, and literature. This step gives the chance to present the general scheme of all research. The main content load is created by the body part. It should be divided into sections, which will express the main provisions of the story writing. Each section should be divided into small paragraphs, allowing you to consistently link ideas and present them according to a certain scheme. If, for example, the biography essay story writing will consist of two sections, then in the first section, it is desirable to give a generalized theoretical analysis of the problems to be considered, thus laying the methodological basis for studying the specific aspect of these problems. Then the second half will be devoted to a specific theoretical analysis of the problem.

The Third Stage: Writing an Introduction

The biography introduction includes the goals and objectives of the study. They must be substantiated at the beginning. Some themes provide a justification for the relevance of the study, i.e., the importance of researching a particular problem in modern conditions. During the substantiation of relevance, purpose, task, it is desirable to logically connect the study’s final provisions not only with each other but also with the defined purpose and objectives of the selected matter.

Along with the substantiation of the topic, it is possible to analyze the various sources to identify the general development of the topic and issues related to it. It is also possible to trace aspects of the problem, which are insufficiently covered in the literature and which in one way or another indicate the degree of development of the problem. This element is very complex, but its presence indicates the student’s scientific maturity, so the evaluation of the result of such work will definitely be positive.

Writing an introduction outlining the general direction of the research process is the most important component of the preparation of a biography essay story because it depends on the effectiveness of all further work.

The Fourth Stage: The Main Part 

Compliance with two main provisions should be observed here:

1. Observance of the outline;
2. Thinking about the logic of the presentation of the material.

When creating this part, it is necessary to remember that each thesis conducted in the essay story writing requires substantiation. It should be borne in mind that the justification can be both theoretical and authoritative. In the first case, it is necessary to give logical-theoretical arguments; in the second – to use some provisions in the form of quotations from the processed literature. The most important justification will be the use of both the first and second types. If a student includes as much as possible his personal attitude in the form of arguments (if the issue gives grounds for this), it also will not go unnoticed by the teacher and will affect the overall assessment. Arguments should be given in the form of a citation with a mandatory reference to the source of information.

One of the complex but very important components of the study is to build a logical interconnectedness of all paragraphs. This will be done under the conditions of conclusions made for each section, small generalizations. In addition, if the transition from part to part is systemic, all work will have a single line of investigation. The conclusions should summarize the whole part’s content and give a clear answer to the questions addressed in it. Each conclusion should be associated with the title, i.e., the conclusions should be constantly compared with the main outline.

The most important means of expressing a logical connection are special functional-syntactic means of communication that indicate the sequence of thought development. You should use the means that reflect causation, for example: because, due to the fact that; in addition, etc. Before proceeding to another opinion, it is necessary to refer to the next expressions: before pointing to, should be considered, let’s focus on, etc. Conclusions should begin with the next statements: as follows, the above allows us to draw some conclusions, it should be noted, etc. These ‘language cliches’ indicate the logic of thought, make it possible to avoid statements that do not relate to scientific research, direct the course of thought, and follow the rules of research according to the sections of the study.

The objectivity of presentation is the main stylistic feature of scientific language, which follows from the specifics of scientific knowledge, seeks to establish scientific truth, hence the presence in the text of insert constructions that indicate the degree of probability. A mandatory requirement for the objectivity of the presentation of the material is the origin to which the author refers. In the text, this condition is implemented using special insert words and phrases: according to the subsequent data, in the opinion of such an author, etc.

Another rule of scientific presentation of the material is clarity, conciseness. Clear meaning, logical connections, integrity, and consistency of thought development. The language and style of research have emerged under the influence of scientific etiquette, the essence of which is to interpret different points of view on a particular problem in order to link the truth.

The Fifth Stage: Conclusions

Conclusions are made on the basis of the most significant provisions of the work, as well as taking into account all the generalizations that were made at the end of each section. In addition to the general conclusions, there may be some recommendations for further development of the topic.

The Sixth Stage: Arrangement of the Used Sources

Since higher education involves future professionals’ ability to study different sources of information, it is desirable to use different types of information. The list should consist of at least five sources. Literature should be organized properly so that readers can find sources on the Internet.

So, at the stage of processing the literature, it is necessary to accurately record each information source’s source data. If you have quotes, various links to textual material, be sure to indicate the pages. 

Follow these six steps and create a unique biography essay without any problems!

“If you found this article helpful, don’t miss our comprehensive guide, ‘Words and Phrases for Essays,’ which offers a wealth of linguistic resources for your writing.