1. Biography, Autobiography and Memoir
Explaining the genre: Miss Roberts

2. Biographies, Autobiographies and Memoirs
All of these genres tell the life story or a portion of the life story of a real person.

3. Biography, Autobiography, Memoir
An Overview
Biography, Autobiography, Memoir

4. What is a biography?
A Biography s a detailed description or account of a person’s life, in which the author attempts to use fact to interpret the life of another. It is an example of a Secondary Source.
Characteristics of Biography:
Tells the story of a person’s life.
Written by someone else
Demonstrates a thorough knowledge of the individual/thorough research into their life
Written in the third person

5. What is an Autobiography?
It is a written account of the life of a person, written by that person. It is an example of a primary source.
Characteristics of autobiography:
The author provides a first-hand account of the events and experiences of his or her own life
Author attempts to accurately recall memories, but is still considered subjective by nature.
Reveals the writer’s feelings, reactions, values and goals
Written in the first person

6. What is a Memoir?
It can be considered a sub-genre of autobiography. It is a collection of memories that an individual writes about concerning moments and events (both public or private) that took place in the author’s life. It is an example of a primary source.
Characteristics of autobiography:
It often presents a very narrowed focus, compared to autobiography.
It deals with highly significant events and turning points in the life of the author.
Written in the first person

7. Biographies
The Basics

8. Biography: The Basics
A biography is a genre of writing that deals with a detailed description of an individual’s life. It deals with more than just the basic facts that make up that individual’s history. That is to say, it goes beyond the details of their education, work, relationships, and death;. Rather, it portrays a person's experience of these life events. It is not necessarily a summary. A biography presents a person’s life story, highlighting various aspects of his or her life, including intimate details of experience. It may include an analysis of the subject's personality.

9. Biography: The Technical Stuff
Biographical works are usually non-fiction, but fiction can also be used to portray a person's life. One in-depth form of biographical coverage is called legacy writing. Biography doesn’t necessarily need to be in written form. It is a genre that is present in many kinds of media, from literature to film.

10. Who writes Biographies?
An authorized biography is written with the permission, cooperation, and at times, participation of a subject or a subject's heirs. The writer of a biography must conduct a substantial amount of research in order to produce a successful work.

11. Autobiography
The Basics

12. Autobiography: The Basics
An autobiography takes stock of the autobiographer's life from the moment of writing. While biographers generally rely on a wide variety of documents and viewpoints, autobiography may be based entirely on the writer's memory. This makes autobiography an inherently subjective account of past events. The inability—or unwillingness—of the author to accurately recall memories has in certain cases resulted in misleading or incorrect information. Some sociologists and psychologists have noted that autobiography offers the author the ability to recreate history.

13. Autobiography: The Technical Stuff
Autobiographies are written in the first person and reflect back on past events. It might be episodic, highlighting one significant event after the other. Is is likely to be chronological, but organises the events in a synthesised order. These events might correspond with significant historical events, which root the account in time and reality. This bolsters the writing with a sense of credibility. It will often deal with obstacles and challenges that needed to be overcome.

14. Who Writes Autobiographies?
An autobiography is written by the person himself or herself, sometimes with the assistance of a collaborator or ghostwriter. The use of a ghostwriter is very common in modern celebrity autobiographies.

15. Memoirs
The Basics

16. Memoirs: The Basics
A memoir is a written account of private and public moments or events, that took place in the author’s life. The account given by the author in the work are understood to be factual. The defining characteristic between memoir and autobiography is its narrowed focus. To put it another way, a biography or autobiography tells the story "of a life", whereas a memoir often tells "a story from a life.”

17. Memoirs: The Technical Stuff
Memoirs are written in the first person. They generally do not aim to recount events over a long time frame. They will usually focus on rendering particular memories or events in thorough detail. They will offer comprehensive accounts of significant occasions, perhaps against the backdrop of some particular historical significance. Because they deal with particular stories, they will often have a resolution. They often have much more emotion and personal feeling.

18. Who Writes Memoirs?
The most important difference between a memoir and an autobiography is that the author of a memoir (or memoirist) need not be a famous icon or celebrity. Gore Vidal wrote: “ A memoir is how one remembers one’s own life, while an autobiography is history, requiring research, dates, facts double-checked.” It is more about what can be gleaned from a section of one’s life than about the outcome of the life as a whole.