The biographer will also mention the people who did not participate in the life event, or who are not named in the description, but are somehow related to the person. This does not mean, however, that these people were not involved in the life event. They might have played a part, or they might have had an influence on the person’s development. If the person was in school, he or she will have heard the name of several classmates. If the person was a teacher, he or she will know the names of the students in class. Even if the person was never in school, but knows someone who was, the biographer might mention the name of the teacher of the person who was not in school at the time.
Biographies can be written in the form of a journal, but they can also be written in the form of an article or a book. These formats allow the biographer to include much more detail about the subjects than could be included in a short note. If the person has already been named in a biographical account, then a book about his or her life is usually written in the same format. If the person has never been mentioned, however, a book about his or her life may be written to emphasize the key events and people in the person’s life, such as when he or she was born, how he or she grew up, the relationships in his or her life, the school he or she attended, the major achievements in his or her life, and other major events in the person’s life, as well. The biographer should take care to include all of the important information about the person in a biographical account.
Biographies will vary depending on the subject. A general biographical profile is generally a single sentence, though a few paragraphs may be more appropriate for some subjects. A very detailed biographical profile may span several pages, including details about the person’s education, early work history, relationships with others, career history, personal relationship history, and life after the person’s death. Although biographies are usually written with the objective of describing a person from birth to the present, some biographies are more descriptive about the person’s past.
A biographer’s job is not finished, however, until after he or she has written a complete and thorough biography of the person’s life. The biographer should still leave room for interpretation. The biographer must explain why he or she has chosen the particular details to describe in the biography. The biographer should also tell the reader why he or she chose the particular details. He or she should provide a reference to where the person can find more information about the person if the person wants more information about the biographer’s biographical account. He or she should also let the reader know that the biographer is not the author of the biographical account but instead is merely interpreting the biographer’s words and thoughts about the person.
The biographer’s job is not limited to writing a biography about the life of a single person. The biographer may write biographies about the life of an entire family or group of individuals, an entire era, a city, a nation, or an organization. For example, a biographer who writes a biography on a historical figure, such as a historical figure of the Second World War, may choose to write biographies about all members of the organization, not just one member.
Biographies may also be written about famous people who have received a Nobel Prize but never won it. It is possible to write biographies about famous people who have won Nobel Prizes; however, these biographies need to be very detailed because the biographer cannot just quote any information about the winner without giving enough information to allow the reader to understand the meaning of the award.
It is sometimes difficult for the biographer to know what is the best way to summarize a biographical subject in a single sentence. This can be done by providing quotes from the biographer’s biography to make the meaning of the information more clear. However, if the biographer chooses to leave enough room for interpretation in the quote, then a biographer’s life is left open to interpretation, allowing the reader to see the biographer’s feelings about the person and to find out why he or she wrote the biography in the first place.
