How to Write a Biography Format

A biography is a story of someone’s life, which is mainly written by another person. Based on the information, a biography can be written short or it can be written long. A short biography contains a person’s basic fact of life and their significance, whereas a long biography describes the entire life story of a person. Generally, biographies are the life stories of famous personalities that highlight different aspects of their life. The main objective of writing a biography is to reveal the surprising facts of famous person’s life. Let us understand how to write biography in an appropriate manner.

1.  Select a Person: Whether you want to write a biography of a popular person or close friend and relative, you have to choose a person first. Before selecting a person, ask yourself that whose life has inspired you and whom you admire the most.

2.  Gather important information about the person’s life: Collect minute details that can help you in writing a good biography. Right from the birthday to birth place, education, work experience, relationship, marriage and achievements, collect all the basic facts that you need for writing a life story of a person. Besides this, include the major events or the turning points that have changed the life of the person.

3. Start a biography with an introductory paragraph: Write an overview of the person’s life by highlighting the main points.

4. Write about the achievements: Mention the achievements and accolades of the popular personality. Describe the milestones of the person, which he or she has attained or reached. Mention significant facts like:- 

•    How he or she became famous?

•    What made him or her popular?

•    What are his or her contributions to the society?

5. Arranged the information an organized manner: Write the life story of the person in a chronological order. First explain the past life of the person, then describe the current situation. In this way, you can highlight all the phases of a person’s life and can involve your readers in your writing.

6.  Collect additional information: Do some research and collect the information about the person, which is not known to many people.

7.  Summary: Wrap up the biography by emphasizing on the key points. Make sure that you do not mention any new fact, which you have not mentioned at the beginning.

How to Improve English Writing Skills

English language is accepted as the global language. It is also considered an international language of business. Besides, English language is also used as a medium of communication in MNCs, educational institutes, embassies and all over the world. In today’s fast paced era, it is extremely essential to have a good command of the English language. Whether spoken or written, one can master the English language through regular practice. In order to gain proficiency in English writing, a student needs to do a lot practice. Here, some useful tips are discussed that will help you in improving your English writing skills.

1.    Practice writing on a regular basis: Develop a habit of writing something in English on a daily basis. You can maintain a dairy and can write your daily life experience. Gradually, you will see an improvement in your writing skill.

2.    Choose a topic and write: Pick a topic from newspaper or any topic that comes to your mind. For example, write about global warming. Discuss the impact of global warming on the environment. You can also present your views on climate change.

3.    Take assistance from online resources: If you get stuck while writing something, then take help from online resources. Use online resources to understand the meaning of a word or to check grammar.

4.  Think out of the box: Be creative and brainstorm some ideas that are different as well as interesting. Try to write something different that pop up in your brain. In this way, you can showcase your creativity and improve your writing skills.

5.   Take help from a friend to judge your writing: Take assistance from a friend who knows English thoroughly and can edit your piece of writing. If your friend will read and edit your work, then you will be able to understand your level of improvement. In addition to this, he or she will also help you in determining the mistakes, which you have ignored.

English Vocabulary with Meaning and Sentences

Vocabulary is the words that make up a language. It also refers to phrases of two or more words such as ‘pleasure to meet you’, ‘good morning’ or ‘how do you do’. These phrases include more than one word that is meaningful. Hence, vocabulary can be defined as the words of language as well as phrases and portion of words that convey a specific meaning like the way a single word do. In other words, vocabulary is a group of words or phrases that are alphabetically arranged and defined.

English vocabulary plays a major role in language as it helps an individual to express his or her thoughts in a correct and coherent manner. Let see from below examples how vocabularies are used to make sentences.

1.    Able : Can do or capable of doing something

•    Sharon will be able to complete her studies.

2.    Accept: Approval or agreement

•    Erick has accepted my proposal.    

3.    Accident: Unplanned event or sudden

•    I accidentally deleted my work on the computer.

4.    Advise: An opinion or recommendation

•    The best advice my mother ever gave me was to be kind to others. 

5.    Avoid: Stay away

•    I always avoid arguments with friends.

6.    Ban: Prohibit or forbid

•    Some drugs are banned in many countries.

7.    Barrier: An obstacle

•    The Himalayan ranges act as a barrier between Arunachal Pradesh and Tibet.

8.    Belief: Faith or devotion

•    I have a strong belief in god.

9.    Calm: Peaceful or quiet

•    I prefer to study in a calm and quiet place.

10.    Cause: A reason

•    The event is organized for a good cause.

11.    Claim: To assert or declare

•    She went to her native place to claim her property.

12.    Destroy: Devastate or demolish

•    The earthquake destroyed everything in Japan.

13.    Express: To convey an idea or to communicate

•    She expressed her love for her family.

14.    Fair: Impartial or pleasing to the eyes.

•    The judgement was fair.

15.    Gather: Assemble

•    Everyone gathered at the church for the Christmas Eve.

What are Misplaced and Dangling Modifiers and it's Examples

A modifier is a clause, phrase or word that modifies another word. Hence, an adverb and adjective are also considered modifiers as they change the meaning of another word or add a description to it. Apart from adjective and adverb modifiers, there are some modifiers that make the sentence confusing, unclear or humorous. A misplaced modifier is a modifier that is put in the wrong place in the sentence. Besides, the phrase, which does not mention a subject, is considered a dangling modifier. Let us understand the misplaced and dangling modifiers in detail.

Misplaced Modifier

A misplaced modifier is a type of modifier that is placed in the wrong part of the sentence. It can be determined when the subject of the modifier is confusing.

Examples:

•    The clock was too old in the store. (Misplaced modifier)

•    The clock in the store was too old. (Correctly placed modifier)

•    She served the coffee to the guest on paper cups. (Misplaced modifier)

•    She served the guest coffee on paper cups. (Correctly placed modifier)

•    He saw a monkey on the way to the store. (Misplaced modifier)

•    On the way to the store, he saw a monkey. (Correctly placed modifier)

Dangling Modifier    

At times, when writing a sentence in a hurry, we often ignore adding a subject to describe who has done or for whom the action is intended, which makes the sentence meaningless or incomplete. Such sentences contain words or phrases that are recognized as the dangling modifiers. In simple words, dangling modifiers are the phrases and clauses that are not clearly related to the words that are modified.

Key points to remember:

1.    A dangling modifier cannot be corrected by moving it to a different place in a sentence.

2.    Generally, it comes at the beginning of the sentence. Besides, it can also appear at the end of the sentence.

Examples:

•    When six years old, my father enrolled in music classes. (Dangling modifier)

•    When I was six years old, my father enrolled in music classes. (Corrected modifier)

•    Having looked through the bakery shop, the cake I wanted was not there. (Dangling modifier)

•    Having looked through the bakery shop, I realized that the cake I wanted was not there. (Corrected modifier)

•    Arrived at the airport early to not miss my flight. (Dangling modifier)

•    I arrived at the airport early to not miss my flight. (Corrected modifier)

Sentence Fragments and its Types

“United we stand, divided we fall.” a very popular saying in the English language. Wondering what has this saying in connection to the topic. If we analyse the sentence we find that it explains the very nature of the sentence wherein each group of words is meaningless unless we have some subject defined in between which adds value to the sentence. These groups of word which do not have any importance of its own are termed as sentence fragments. In the above saying, united stand, divided fall does not give a definite thought on its own, but when “we” is added as a subject, it gives the sentence a complete meaning. Other sentence fragments are those which either lack a subject or lack an action or is a dependent clause standing alone. Setting the context, let us understand the different types of sentence fragments which are commonly used.

•  Prepositional Phrase: Fragments starting with a preposition like in, above, near, etc are an ideal way to start a sentence but should not be used everywhere else it may sound repetitive. For example:  In spite of injury, I won the match. In the above example, I won the match is the main clause.

•  Appositional Phrase: These kinds of fragment add an extra meaning to the sentence. The sentences without appositional fragments would also have its own meaning; these fragments add an extra dimension to the dimension. For example: My friend, Tommy, is an excellent speaker.

•    Participial Phrase: These types of fragment use past tense, which acts as an adjective.

•   Gerund Phrase: These types of fragments use a verb ending within. This makes the gerund sound like a noun. For example: I earn part time money, driving cab on weekends.

•   Infinitive Phrase: Fragments use the infinitive form of “to” verb. For example: To break a record, he swam across the Panama Canal.

•  Adjective Clause: Who, which, that which describes the noun of the clause are called adjective clauses.

•    Adverb Clause: These fragments describe the verb of the main clause.

What is Parallel Structure in Literature

In English literature, parallel structure refers to similar types of words that show two or more ideas, which have the same level of importance. In other words, parallel structure is the repetition of two or more words, phrases and clauses that are same in length and grammatical form. The parallel structure maintains clarity and balances a piece of writing.

It is a kind of technique that is specifically used to highlight essential information or to draw attention of the readers on the key points in your literary work. In a piece of writing, a writer uses the same pattern of words to show the ideas or words of equal importance. Besides, to help readers understand what is being conveyed. Let us understand the parallel structure with the help of below mentioned examples.

•    Annie likes singing, dancing and acting.

•    John likes paragliding, river rafting and hiking.

•    The student was asked to write his paper neatly, quickly and correctly.

•    My brother spent his weekends watching TV, eating junk foods and napping.

•    Veronica bought a dress, a pair of high heel stilettos and a scarf.

•    Whether at the office or at home, she was always busy.

•    In order to survive, you need food, water and shelter.

•    Easy come, easy go.

•    What goes around comes around.

•    Kate like only those movies that have a mystery, thriller and romance.

•    She is cunning and egotistic.

•    My favourite foods are pizza, pasta and burger.

Parallel structure not only presents the ideas in a logical manner, but also creates a kind of rhythm in the language a writer uses. In English grammar, parallel structure is also called parallelism. Parallelism is a method that is used to make the sentence persuasive. The repetition of a phrase or word allows a smooth flow of ideas.

How to Identify Parts of Speech in a Paragraph

In English grammar, parts of speech are considered the base of all types writing and reading. Parts of speech are groups of words that own similar grammatical properties. According to the English grammar, these are categorized into eight parts, which includes noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, pronoun, conjunction and interjection.

The parts of speech help us in recognizing how a word is used in a sentence. Sometimes, the same word acts as a noun in one sentence and an adjective or verb in another sentence. For example, ‘All types of books are available in the library’ (Here, the ‘books’ is the noun). Let see another sentence, ‘Joe stand in a queue to book the movie ticket’. (Here, ‘book’ is a verb)

It is essential for students to understand how to identify parts of speech in a sentence or paragraph. This will enable them to comprehend what they read. Understanding the correct use of each part of speech will also help students to write meaningful and correct sentences. Let us see how to determine each part of speech in the paragraph.

1.   Noun: A noun can be a person, idea, place or thing. Generally, a noun acts as the subject of the sentence and also acts as a direct and indirect object. For example, ‘Sam’, ‘James’, ‘Africa’, ‘Japan’, ‘Window’, ‘Chair’ and ‘Goodness’ are nouns. A noun can be singular and plural and will be present in every sentence.

2.  Adjective: The role of adjectives is to describe and modify the nouns and pronouns in the sentence. It gives answers to the questions like ‘what kind’, ‘how many’, or ‘which one’. For instance, ‘beautiful’, ‘expressionless’, ‘Russian’, ‘American’, ‘bigger’, ‘blue-eyed’, ‘well behaved’, ‘polite’, etc. are adjectives.

3.  Verb: A verb expresses some kind of action, happening or state of being. The action or occurrence can be described in different tenses including past, present and future. For example, ‘run’, ‘hear’, ‘dance’, ‘write’, ‘drive’, etc.

4.  Adverb: Adverbs are those words that modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs. For example, ‘quickly’, ‘slowly’, ‘loudly’, ‘unfortunately’, ‘angrily’, ‘happily’ and ‘gracefully’ are adverb.

5.  Preposition: The role of preposition is to join a noun, pronoun or noun phrase to other part of the sentence. In simple words, it explains a relationship between other words in a sentence. For instance, ‘under’, ‘next to’, ‘over’, ‘into’, ‘across’, ‘in’, ‘at’ and ‘with’, etc. are prepositions.

6. Conjunction: Conjunctions are those words that link other word, phrase and clauses in a sentence. For instance, ‘but’, ‘so’, ‘for’, ‘nor’, ‘or’, etc.

7.  Pronoun: Pronouns are those words that replace nouns or take the place of nouns in a sentence. For example, ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘I’, ‘few’, ‘many’, ‘everyone’, ‘someone’ and ‘everybody’ are pronouns.

8.  Interjection: Interjections in a sentence are the words that make an exclamation. For instance, ‘wow’, ‘what’, ‘oh’, ‘hey’, ‘ouch’, etc.

What are the different uses of infinitives

Infinitives are basically of two types viz: verb with “to” and without “to”. Infinitives without “to” are called as the base verbs.

Usage of To-Infinitive:

1.    To-Infinitive can be used to serve as a subject of the sentence: This kind of usage is very common in day to day writing. For example:

•    To learn algebra, that is our main objective.
•    To visit Disneyland is my long cherished dream.

2.    To-Infinitive can be used to depict the purpose of action: These help in answering the “why” part of any activity being done. For example:

•    He came to school to learn physics.
•    John came to collect his baseball bat.

3.    To –Infinitive can be used to denote what can be done with some object:  In such cases to-infinitive will follow a noun or pronoun. For example:

•    I would prefer denim to wear.
•    Children would need a playground to play football.

4.    To-Infinitive to make a comment or judgment:  While using to infinitive to make a comment the structure can be subject +to be a noun +noun phrase +to infinitive. For example:

•    John is the right person to hire.
•    It is a wrong place to park.

5.    To-Infinitive as adverbs: To infinitives are very commonly used with adverbs like “too” and “enough” to specify the reason behind an outcome. Too and enough are placed intelligently in such a manner before or after the adjective that they modify the sentence even without the ‘to infinitive’ and at the same time might sound grammatically correct. For example:

•    I had too many files to carry.
•    The food is too hot to eat
•    Tom is quite mature enough to take his own decisions.

6.    To –Infinitives after adjectives: This is also a common pattern of using to infinitives. For example:

•    It is important to be knowledgeable.
•    It is good to speak any language fluently.
•    He did not have the permission to play.

7.    Usage of Base Infinitive: Base infinitive or zero infinitives can be used after auxiliaries, after verbs of perception, after expressions, etc. For example:

•    We heard them fighting behind the closed door.
•    Would you like a cup of coffee or tea?
•    He had better work harder on his homework.
•    Let’s go to the party tonight.