Writing a Biography

A biography is the story of a person's life. It includes details of the person's life. It generally follows a specific chronological order:

1.  General Background
2.  Childhood/adolescence
3. Education
4. Family life
5.  Career (achievements, failures, events, setbacks)
6. (end of life and death)
7. Conclusion and personal opinion.

In order to show the chronological sequence, we often give the actual dates of events and use time expressions such as before, after, at the same time, while, for, since, later, during this period....
Linking words are also useful to show the relationship between events or factors that have influenced a person's life.
Connectors such as although, despite, as well as, besides, not only... but also, therefore, because, as a result, etc, can be used to improve the quality of the biography you write.

FREQUENT PHRASES AND STRUCTURES

1. General background
 ⇰He/she was born in ……………(place), on………….. (date, ordinal)
“Malvin Wetey was born in Wales on the third of April 1989”
“Melissa Badley was born in Merridon, Scotland in 1995”
⇰ He/she belonged to a - rich/wealthy family # poor/humble family.
- a family of humble origins. / of noble lineage
- big/large family / small family.
⇰ He/She was part of a - working class / middle class/ ruling class family
- cultured # ignorant/illiterate family.
⇰He/She was brought up - in an urban/ country/ context
- in very harsh conditions / privileged conditions
- by a ……………. family.
2. Childhood / adolescence
⇰  At a very early age, he/she started working hard in a factory
⇰ At the age of 4, Mozart played the piano perfectly.
⇰  When she turned 18, she left home to start a new life by herself.
⇰  During his childhood, Amstrong was riding his bike for 5 hours every day
⇰ By the time she was 18, Sara had already travelled to 14 different countries

3. Education
⇰ He went on with his/her studies at school/university.
⇰ Sam was a(n) lazy/hard-working/brilliant/average student.
⇰ He was very good at Art and Literature
⇰ Barbara was skilled in Mathematics.
⇰ She always got the highest/lowest marks in the class
⇰ Ralph went successfully through his studies and graduated in Sociology.
⇰ His academic performance was very satisfactory/outstanding # poor
⇰ Sandra got a degree in Law

4. Family life
⇰When he was 34 he got married and had 5 children.
⇰ She decided to stay single and lead her own life.
⇰ Phil married the girl of his dreams, but after a few years of happy marriage, things started to go wrong.
⇰ Before she married Adam she had dated many other men.
⇰ After having her first baby, she became far more understanding.
⇰ He shared his life with his wife and their 3 children.

5. Career ( achievements, failures, events, setbacks )
⇰ He spent a lot of years of his life fighting for the human rights.

⇰During his lifetime, he did his best to improve the living standard of poor people
⇰He devoted much of his time to travel to different places and to know other cultures.
⇰After a long period of happiness and success, he suddenly......

⇰His/her life was full of achievements, although he also experienced some serious setbacks.

6. End of life and death.
⇰He died at the age of ………,

⇰ He died of natural causes/ of a ……… (disease, heart attack, for instance).

Time Expressions for Biography Quiz

Linking Words in Narratives Quiz