Another genre, intellectual biography, forsakes the need for basic chronological structure and develops a narrative of a life through the conceptual analysis of the subject’s motives and beliefs within the world of ideas. Those who write intellectual biography have overcome the interpretive angst of other educational researchers, what Rollyson (2005) has deemed “the biographical apologia,” who include pages of interviewee narrative and rich description but who refrain from interpreting motives and feelings. In contrast, the intellectual biographer recognizes and accepts the invasive yet justifiable analysis and overcomes the intrusive nature of inquiry with care resulting in self-reflective thoughtfulness and insight.
A third form of biographical research is defined as life history writing (and the narrative study of lives) with strong allegiance to the social science research traditions of oral history and narrative discourse and, specifically, great devotion to theoretical constructs from sociology and psychology. Case study paradigms emerge as life history writers address issues of generalizability, social interaction-social structure, and reliability and validity as well as the biographical quest of any study of a life. This research genre has taken many forms in the field of education, perhaps resonating most in the area of teacher education with the narrative study of teachers’ lives scholarship and, to a lesser degree, with the first-year teacher research that also remains loyal to aspects of intellectual biography (Goodson, 2008; Bullough, 2008).
In recent years a fourth genre, memoir biography (still distinct from autobiography and memoir) has begun to appear in the field of curriculum studies. Attention is devoted to the researcher’s motives in relation to the biographical subject and with emphasis upon the stylistic presentation of the biographer’s reflections and insights in relation to the factual account of the life. An interpretive narrative of the writer, alongside the presentation of the biographical subject, becomes part of the research. A life story is being told, yet in relation to the transactional experiences of the biographer that in turn influences and foreshadows similar experiences for the reader.
A fifth type, narrative biography, represents a dynamic portrayal of a life without the need for absolute facticity or a comprehensive account from birth to grave. Neither is this style burdened by the ultimate interpretation of the subject that must be accepted by the reader. Facts are recognized and some interpretations are accepted as being more significant than others; however, the biographer, though consciously aware of his or her personal emotions and reactions to the subject, acknowledges that the telling of the story is primarily defined by the subject in relation to the reader.
No definitive listing of biographical types can ever be constructed since, fortunately, new forms—content and process oriented—are continually being conceived and explored. Other more content-related designations include feminist biography (Alpern, et al., 1992; Ascher, et. al., 1984; Wagner-Martin, 1994) and black biography (Backscheider, 1997), all with emphasis upon identity and the restoration of the “invisible” subject.
Biography’s relationship to autobiography, memoir, and narrative research in education is well developed and will continually be redefined (Denzin, 1989; Epstein, 1991; Rollyson, 2008) Yet, with the emerging interest in biographical inquiry and with some growing interest in prosopography (group biography), little consensus of terminology exists; for example, it should be noted that while some qualitative researchers view the term as accurate, there are dramatic differences between biography and autobiography—much more than any slash or solidus can convey.
Alpern, S., Antler, J., Perry, E. I. & Scobie, I. W. (Eds.) (1992). . Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
Ascher, C., DeSalvo, L., & Ruddick, S. (Eds.) (1984). . Boston: Beacon Press.
Backscheider, P. R. (1997). . New York: Oxford University Press.
Bullough, R. V., Jr. (2008). . Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Denzin, N. (1989). . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Epstein, W. (Ed.) (1991). . West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press.
Garraty, J. (1957). . New York: Knopf.
Goodson, I. (2008). . Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Josselson, R. & Lieblich, A. (Eds.) (1993). . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Oates, S. B. (Ed.) (1986). . Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.
Roberts, B. (2002). . London: Open University Press.
Rollyson, C. (2008). . Chicago: Ivan R. Dee.
Rollyson, C. (2005). Chicago: Ivan R. Dee.
Wagner-Martin, L. (1994). . New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
By Craig Kridel, University of South Carolina
Educational resources and simple solutions for your research journey
Most early-career academicians and PhD students spend a lot of time in research. They are often engaged in submitting papers to journals and conferences and sometimes contributing articles and chapters, and publishing books. These generally require their core credentials to be presented in the form of a short academic biography. Such bios are also needed for posting on departmental or personal websites and social media platforms as well. Academic bios are crucial as they help to establish a researcher’s professional identity, facilitate networking and collaboration, and create opportunities for career advancement.
However, writing an academic bio is no easy task. In fact, most early career researchers find writing their academic autobiography more challenging than writing a complex research paper. Creating an academic bio requires researchers to introspect on their careers and present their achievements using a delicate balance between humility and self-promotion. Content also needs to be tailored depending on where the bio will be given. Moreover, maintaining the right mix of factual accuracy and engaging storytelling is essential and can be challenging. No wonder, then, that understanding the nuances involved in creating an impactful bio is a crucial skill that early career researchers must develop.
This article explores the intricacies of crafting an engaging academic autobiography, shares details on how to structure it, and outlines the key elements that it must include. It also offers some great tips that make the writing process easier.
Table of Contents
While there are different ways in which you can present your academic biography, there are two basic frameworks that are usually used –
Written using 35-50 words, a brief biography is generally used for articles, books, and conferences. It should include the following key elements:
More detailed than a short bio, this is useful for your department or personal website or for seminars where you are the main speaker. Generally, around 150–400 words, long bios include the following critical elements in addition to the core points provided in the short bio –
Let us look at some examples of a good and bad academic biography.
“Hi, my name is Simon. Born in Illinois, I was a University of Chicago alumnus before I moved to New York. There, I joined NYU and pursued research. Though this area of work was far different from what I pursued in my undergrad, which was a degree in life sciences, I am midway through my PhD course right now.”
This is an example of how an academic biography should not appear. It has a very casual ring to it while providing unnecessary details. On the other hand, this bio can be made more effective and impactful by writing it like this instead –
“Simon Parks is a professor of social sciences at New York State University. Having spent his early years in a household that had regular theological discussions, Simon developed a keen interest in the field of religion and its intersectionality with capitalist ideologies. His key areas of work and research focus on religion, political ideology, and democratization. He is presently pursuing his PhD degree building on his research work at the University.”
This version is more professional, to the point, and focuses only on what is required. When done well, an academic autobiography can be a valuable tool, providing valuable insights into the author’s interests and research.
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In terms of bang for your buck, a biography research report packs a punch. It covers a wide range of standards-based skills, and it’s a meaningful student-centered project. Each step of the biographical writing process is outlined below, allowing you to make the most of every minute of instructional time.
Kick off the assignment by breaking down the term biography. Lead students in a discussion about the word parts bio and graph. You can also take a moment to focus on the differences between a biography and an autobiography by discussing the meaning of the word part auto. Click here to read more about adding roots, prefixes, and suffixes to your curriculum.
Start the biographical writing process by examining a mentor text. Mentor texts are pieces of writing that students can return to and reread for different purposes. They are texts that can be studied and imitated. To make sure you don’t overwhelm your students or bombard them with unnecessary information, select a short biographical excerpt (I use the John Muir chapter from Home of the Brave: An American History Book for Kids: 15 Immigrants Who Shaped US History ). After reading through the biographical excerpt together as a class, analyze the major components of a biography using discussion questions that you have prepared ahead of time. Focus your mentor text questions on content, structure, and connection. Three example questions are provided below.
Text Content: What details does the author provide to begin the biography?
Text Structure: How is the information in the text organized?
Text Connection: Which elements from this text would you like to include in your biography?
Completing a biography research guide will help your students remain focused and on task. The format and structure of the research guide is based on the needs of your students. Hopefully, the items listed below will point you in the right direction.
Cover Page : It’s important to review the meaning of the term biography and require students to think critically about who they will research and why. Giving students room to pick the person they will research and write about is what makes this assignment student-centered. Even picking from a list of figures provides students with a sense of choice, helping them take ownership of their learning.
Things To Keep In Mind : Include a page that reviews important details and things to keep in mind during the research and writing process. You may also want to include space for students to record due dates.
Bibliography : A bibliography template with space to record source information is helpful for students to utilize while researching.
Research Template : Guide students through the research process with a comprehensive research template. In order to assist students in crafting a successful biography, include specific criteria for students to fill in while researching.
After completing the research portion of the project, your students will be prepared to start writing their biographies. Providing your students with a structured step-by-step outline will ensure that each paragraph of their biography is organized and focused.
An essay template is nice to have on hand for students that might be struggling with the writing process. It can also be used as a whole-class activity before independent writing begins. Modeling the writing process for students will ease the feelings of stress and provide your students with a roadmap for success. Observing others plays a vital role in how we acquire new knowledge and skills. When applied to this particular project, analyzing the mentor text and modeling the writing process are two ways in which observational learning can be applied.
“Observing others plays a vital role in how we acquire new knowledge and skills.” Albert Bandura, Social Learning Theory
An editing checklist is extremely helpful for peer or independent editing. Ideally, the checklist will include the assessment of essay content, structure, grammar, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. The revising process is something that students will develop over time. Providing students with an editing checklist is a helpful learning scaffold until students feel comfortable revising their work independently.
Students need to start with the end in mind. Reviewing the rubric before starting the research and writing process gives students a clear understanding of the project expectations.
In addition to reinforcing research and writing skills, the biography project will provide your students with an opportunity to think critically about an influential figure and how they might apply some of the lessons learned to their own lives.
Are you ready to incorporate a biography research report into your curriculum, but don’t have the time to create all of the necessary components? Click here to download everything you need from Literacy in Focus on TpT. Printable and digital formats are included!
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Before you start your research, check the correct spelling of the person’s name.
While you research, keep in mind that all sources can contain bias; the best biographical information will be signed by an author and will provide bibliographic citations for source material.
Questions to ask before you start your search:
Can you use popular biographical sources available via the free web?
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When you are searching for a research study on a particular topic, you probably notice that articles with interesting, descriptive research titles draw you in. By contrast, research paper titles that are not descriptive are usually passed over, even though you may write a good research paper with interesting contents. This shows the importance of coming up with a good title for your research paper when drafting your own manuscript.
The research title plays a crucial role in the research process, and its importance can be summarized as follows:
Before we look at how to title a research paper, let’s look at a research title example that illustrates why a good research paper should have a strong title.
Imagine that you are researching meditation and nursing, and you want to find out if any studies have shown that meditation makes nurses better communicators. You conduct a keyword search using the keywords “nursing”, “communication”, and “meditation.” You come up with results that have the following titles:
All four of these research paper titles may describe very similar studies—they could even be titles for the same study! As you can see, they give very different impressions.
As we will see, Title 4 has all the characteristics of a good research title.
According to rhetoric scholars Hairston and Keene, making a good title for a paper involves ensuring that the title of the research accomplishes four goals as mentioned below:
Let’s return to the examples in the previous section to see how to make a research title.
Title | Predicts content? | Interesting? | Reflects tone? | Important keywords? |
| Yes | No | No | Yes |
| No | Yes | Yes | No |
| No | Yes | No | No |
| Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
As you can see in the table above, only one of the four example titles fulfills all of the criteria of a suitable research paper title.
Related: You’ve chosen your study topic, but having trouble deciding where to publish it? Here’s a comprehensive course to help you identify the right journal .
When writing a research title, you can use the four criteria listed above as a guide. Here are a few other tips you can use to make sure your title will be part of the recipe for an effective research paper :
[ Result ]: A [ method ] study of [ topic ] among [ sample ] Example : Meditation makes nurses perform better: a qualitative study of mindfulness meditation among German nursing students
In addition to the tips above, there are many resources online that you can use to help write your research title. Here is a list of links that you may find useful as you work on creating an excellent research title:
Are there any tips or tricks you find useful in crafting research titles? Which tip did you find most useful in this article? Leave a comment to let us know!
Thank you so much:) Have a nice day!
Thank you so much, it helped me.. God bless..
Thank you for the excellent article and tips for creating a research work, because I always forget about such an essential element as the keywords when forming topics. In particular, I have found a rapid help with the formation of informative and sound titles that also conforms to the standards and requirements.
I am doing a research work on sales girls or shop girls using qualititative method. Basicly I am from Pakistan and writing on the scenario of mycountry. I am really confused about my research title can you kindly give some suggestions and give me an approperaite tilte
Hi Zubair, Thank you for your question. However, the information you have provided is insufficient for drafting an appropriate title. Information on what exactly you intend to study would be needed in order to draft a meaningful title. Meanwhile, you can try drafting your own title after going through the following articles our website: https://www.enago.com/academy/top-10-tips-on-choosing-an-attractive-research-title/ , https://www.enago.com/academy/writing-a-good-research-title-things-to-avoid/ , https://www.enago.com/academy/write-irresistible-research-paper-title/ We would be happy to give you feedback and suggest changes if required. Did you get a chance to install our free Mobile App? https://www.enago.com/academy/mobile-app/ . Make sure you subscribe to our weekly newsletter https://www.enago.com/academy/subscribe-now/ .
thanks for helping me like this!!
Thank you for this. It helped me improve my research title. I just want to verify to you the title I have just made. “Ensuring the safety: A Quantitative Study of Radio Frequency Identification system among the selected students of ( school’s name ).
(I need your reply asap coz we will be doing the chap. 1 tomorrow. Thank u in advance. 🙂 )
I am actually doing a research paper title. I want to know more further in doing research title. Can you give me some tips on doing a research paper?
Hi Joan, Thank you for your question. We are glad to know that you found our resources useful. Your feedback is very valuable to us. You can try drafting your own title after going through the following articles on our website: https://www.enago.com/academy/top-10-tips-on-choosing-an-attractive-research-title/ , https://www.enago.com/academy/writing-a-good-research-title-things-to-avoid/ , https://www.enago.com/academy/write-irresistible-research-paper-title/
We would be happy to give you feedback and suggest changes if required. Did you get a chance to install our free Mobile App? https://www.enago.com/academy/mobile-app/ . Make sure you subscribe to our weekly newsletter https://www.enago.com/academy/subscribe-now/ .
That really helpful. Thanks alot
Thank you so much. It’s really help me.
Thanks for sharing this tips. Title matters a lot for any article because it contents Keywords of article. It should be eye-catchy. Your article is helpful to select title of any article.
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i’m found in selecting my ma thesis title ,so i’m going to do my final research after the proposal approved. Your post help me find good title.
I need help. I need a research title for my study about early mobilization of the mechanically ventilated patients in the ICU. Any suggestions would be highly appreciated.
Thank you for posting your query on the website. When writing manuscripts, too many scholars neglect the research title. This phrase, along with the abstract, is what people will mostly see and read online. Title research of publications shows that the research paper title does matter a lot. Both bibliometrics and altmetrics tracking of citations are now, for better or worse, used to gauge a paper’s “success” for its author(s) and the journal publishing it. Interesting research topics coupled with good or clever yet accurate research titles can draw more attention to your work from peers and the public alike. You can check through the following search results for titles on similar topics: https://www.google.com/search?q=early+mobilization+of+the+mechanically+ventilated+patients+in+the+icu&rlz=1C1GCEU_enIN907IN907&oq=&aqs=chrome.0.69i59.4920093j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 .
We hope this would be helpful in drafting an attractive title for your research paper.
Please let us know in case of any other queries.
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In case the topic is new research before you’re writing. And then to stand out, you end up being different.and be inclined to highlight yourself.
There are many free directories, and more paid lists.
To be honest your article is informative. I search many site to know about writing but I didn’t get the information I needed. I saw your site and I read it. I got some new information from here. I think some of your tips can be applied to those too! Thank you so very much for such informative and useful content.
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These titles are a few examples of many hundreds of biographical reference titles available for specific fields of study and subjects. A title search in our library catalog on the phrase "biographical dictionary of" yields over 350 items, for example.
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
Among the numerous forms of biographical research in education, five types are often noted: scholarly chronicles, intellectual biography, life history writing, memoir biography, and narrative biography.
Learn how to structure and write compelling academic bios, whether for conferences, publications, or personal websites. Discover key elements, tips for effective storytelling, and common pitfalls to avoid in academic biography writing. Read more!
Plan a successful biography research and writing project with these seven components!
An academic biography is a concise description of a researcher and his career which is mostly used as an introduction to a conference or public event. This article discusses some important tips on writing an academic bio.
This blog post offers five different formulations to help you create an effective academic biography: the short-and-sweet bio, the brief bio, the detailed bio, the independent scholar bio, and the academic-adjacent bio.
Before you start your research, check the correct spelling of the person’s name. While you research, keep in mind that all sources can contain bias; the best biographical information will be signed by an author and will provide bibliographic citations for source material.
The research title plays a crucial role in the research process, and its importance can be summarized as follows: Therefore, a research title serves as a critical component of the overall research communication process.
Biographical research is a qualitative research approach aligned to the social interpretive paradigm of research. The biographical research is concerned with the reconstruction of life histories and the constitution of meaning based on biographical narratives and documents.
This guide combines online titles with the selected microform and print biography titles in the Olin and Africana reference collections. Online databases are available to Cornell users only. Biography is a branch of the study of history.
These titles are a few examples of many hundreds of biographical reference titles available for specific fields of study and subjects. A title search in our library catalog on the phrase "biographical dictionary of" yields over 350 items, for example.