As presented by: Nadya Salsabila Nanda Karuna and Nadiah Balquista Kaufua

General Understanding
What is I. Generic
Biography? Structure

A Biography, or simply Bio, is a detailed

description of a person's life. It involves
more than just the basic facts like education,
work, relationships, and death; it portrays a
person's experience of these life events.
Biographical works are usually non-fiction.
The difference between a biography and an
autobiography is that autobiographies are
written by the person themselves.
The purpose of a biographical recount is to
inform by retelling past events and
achievements in a person’s life, usually that
of a famous public figure. The text consist of
three parts:
a. Part 1: Orientation
b. Part 2: Series
c. Part 3: Reorientation
 A. PART 1:
ORIENTATION
It gives the reader the background information as to why this person is noteworthy and
should have a biography written about them. The opening paragraph should answer the
questions: who, what, where, when, and how. This part usually contains an initial
description of the characters or actors in biographical texts.
 B. PART 2:
SERIES
This part consists of series of events, most likely told in a chronological order. Here the writer
might refer to a certain time on line. Also contains events containing explanations that
occurred or was experienced by the characters, including the problems it faces in
achieving its goals and ideals. The interesting, memorable, amazing, and moving things
experienced by the characters are also described in the series section.
 C. PART 3:
REORIENTATION
This part contains a type of conclusion with a comment on the contributions this person
has made or a summary and evaluation of the person’s achievement. This part might also
tell about the author’s view on the characters told. Reorientation is optional, it may exist,
but may also not exist depending on the author.
 II. Language Features
Language features is the structure or arrangement of a paragraph (for example, sentence
structure, noun group/phrase, vocabulary, punctuation, grammar, etc.) Choices in language
features and text structures together define a type of text and shape its meaning. These choices
vary according to the purpose of a text, its subject matter, and audience.

A biography’s language features are none other than:

1. A biographical recount uses specific names of the people involved in the biography
2. It is mainly written in simple past tense (the final paragraph could also include present tense)
3. A biographical recount also uses words that have connections to do with a sense of time
4. A biographical recount describes events, so it uses many verb or action verbs.
 THE CHARACTERISTICS OF
BIOGRAPHICAL RECOUNT TEXT
There are some characteristics of biographical recount text that you have to know, such as:

I. It is not written by the subject. It means that a biography is

written by someone else who wants to write about the
subject. It usually will be written based on the needs. Some
writer could write it in either short or long length.
2. It is always written in a third
person’s point of view
 3. It is based on research, not on imagination, when
someone wants to make a biography, she or her must do
some researches. What kind of researches are they?
Reading all books related to the subject is one of the ways
of the research, besides reading, interviewing subject
relation (if it is possible) also can be as a research before
writing a biography.
 4. Describing the subject’s
surroundings (where, when,
and how the person lived.)
 5. Showing how the person
affected other people’s lives
through their behavior,
discoveries, social reform, etc.
6. Supplying details that
illustrate the person’s
individuality.
7. Using vivid language
to narrate the events
8. It is arranged
chronologically.
 An example of Biography
Recount Text
Albert Einstein was born near the end of the
1800s in Ulf, Germany. He graduated from the
University of Zurich in Switzerland at age 26.
That was also when he did his famous work in
physics. Fourteen years later he won the Nobel
Prize for Physics.
For the next ten years he lived in Germany and
traveled a lot to talk to other scientists. Then in
the early 1930s he had to leave Germany
because of Hitler and the Nazi party. He moved
to the United States. From that time until his
death he lived in Princeton, New Jersey. He
died at the age of 74.