Writing a Biography Report:

1. Select an individual you would like to research and read about.

2. As you read write down “” facts about your individual.

Example of “” facts:
Peg Kehret began her autobiography at the age of 12 when she came
down with polio.
She spent many months getting well or recuperating at the Sheltering Arms Hospital in
Minneapolis.

3. Once you have read your entire book and have all of your notes collected you will then be
able to begin writing the “rough” draft for your paragraph(s).

4. Reread your “rough draft” paragraph(s), and then have a classmate edit your paragraph(s).

5. Once you have gone through step 4 you may then have an adult conference to edit for final
draft.

6. Write your final draft paragraph(s) using your edited paper. You may choose to write your
paper neatly in cursive or you may word process your paper.

7. Your biography paper/project must have three parts:

-the first part is the “title page,”
-the second part is the biography paragraph(s), and
-the third part is the resource page.

Creating a Title Page

8. The title page is your first page of your biography report. To create a title page you may
do this in cursive or word process the page. To word process the title page you need to:
•Center your cursor on the first line.
•Set your font size 24,
•Keystroke the “Return” key 10 times. Type:

Biography of
9. Then set your font size to 36 and click on the “B” button in the button bar OR go to
“Text” to “Style” to “Bold” and type the name of your person.
Example:

Peg Kehret
10. Keystroke until you are close to the bottom of the page to write your name and the date.

11. Type your name in “plain” style font by clicking on the “B” button to remove the “bold”
style font. Using a size 18 font, type both your first and last name.
Example:
Susie BeGood
12. Keystroke the “Return” key one time.

13. Type the due date.

Example:
Due: February 28, 2006

Putting an Image on Your Title Page

14. Before you put an image of your person into your report you need to make sure that you
have selected the object arrow on the tool palette. To select the tool palette cllick on the
red toolbox at the bottom left side of your page.

15. Then click on the “arrow” in your tool palette.

16. You are now ready to add a picture or image to your document.

17. To put a picture of your person on your page you will need to go to:

http://google.com
18. Click on “Images”

19. Type in the name of your person you are researching.

20. Select an image (picture) that is at least 300 pixels by 300

21. Double click on the image.

22. Now click on “See full-size image.”

23. You are now ready to put that image in your title page. Drag the image from Google onto
the top of your title page.

Biography of
Peg Kehret

Grabber
Points used to
resize a picture

Susie BeGood
Due: February 28, 2006

24. On you can click and hold on the center of the picture to put it in the correct position, OR
you can use your arrow keys to place it where you would like it to be on the page.
 25. You can also resize the picture by clicking on the lower right hand corner grabber point
and dragging the point in a diagonal direction to make smaller. It will end up looking like
this:
Biography of
Peg Kehret

Susie BeGood
Due: February 28, 2006

26. You have just finished the title page of this biography report.

Writing Your Report

27. When you begin writing the final draft of your report make sure that you set the spacing to
2.5 or 3.0. This makes it much easier to read.

Creating a Resource Page

28. Creating a resource (bibliography) page is the way recognize the resources you used in
writing your report. Begin by centering at the top of a new page the word Resources in
bold type.
Example:
Resources
29. Keystroke “Return” key two times if you are single spacing (1 li).

30. If you have a book that you used when you wrote your information you need to write the
title of the book (underlined), and tell who wrote the book. See below for the example

31. Keystroke “Return” key two times if you are single spacing (1 li) to add another source of
information.

32. If you are using an Internet web site you need to write the title of the web site in quotation
marks (“____”), write “taken from the following web site with a colon (:), write the
address of the web site with the http;//, and the date you got the information. See below for
the example.

Example of using a book as a resource:

Small Steps by Peg Kehret (2001).
Example of using a web site as a resource in your Resource page:
“Iron Lung Survivors.” Taken from the following web site:
http://ww.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/5212/ironlung.html on February 11, 2004.

Resource page example:

Resources
Small Steps by Peg Kehret (2001)

“Iron Lung Survivors.” Taken from the following web site:

http://ww.geocities.com/Heartland/Ranch/5212/ironlung.html on
January 19, 2006.