You need to follow certain effective tips in order to write about yourself – personally or professionally. The article below will tell you how to write a short bio on yourself.
At some point, we all need to write something about ourselves – perhaps a self introduction letter, or a profile on a social networking site, or a resume sample, or a biography. A biography is the description of a person’s life in a manuscript. Technically, if you write a book on someone’s life, it is called a biography, while if you write this biography yourself, i.e., you write an account of your own life in a book, it is called an autobiography.
A bio, however, can be as small as 300 words, used as reference in a personal profile, in a professional bio-data, for business propositions, resumes, and other such public knowledge purposes. Therefore, you need to write a bio if you want to display compiled information about yourself to people for some or the other reason. However, there is a particular pattern in which this has to be written. Certain tips are outlined below.
Writing a Short Bio on Yourself
As mentioned before, biographies give a true, raw account of the events in a person’s life. Biographies are known to be one of the best ways to find the truth about a person, as they give the raw version of what and how that individual was or is. They are written by the individuals themselves, or someone else, and hence there cannot be anything wrong or fictional about them. This is why an autobiography or biographies are found to be one of the best selling genres of writing. A bio, as mentioned, is a miniature version of the same. You are expected to write something about yourself in lesser number of words. You may have noticed that there is a separate section for ‘About Yourself’ on most of the social networking or digital communication sites. This is useful to send out personal and professional information to ‘whomsoever it may concern’.
Length
- Always keep the length short. You are writing a bio, not a book; no one wants to read pages and pages.
- Begin with the regular introduction – personal details, contacts, interests, and hobbies.
- Your accomplishments are important, people need to know what you have achieved and when.
- Of course, you do not have to elaborate this as well; for instance, if you have 6-7 major accomplishments, mentioning 2-3 important ones among them will do.
- Also, you have to consider what you are making the bio for. If it is for a resume, let the length be 200 words, to say the least.
- For a social networking site, the length should not exceed more than 5-6 sentences.
- Preparing a bio for yourself is a very necessary practice, as it is very easy to be included in your paperwork. But, you have to make sure you stick to the rule and keep it short and sufficed.
Clarity
- You need to be very precise and clear about what you are writing.
- A bio is literally a short description about you, you need to highlight what you want to.
- Your name and other personal information referred to as “about me” (address, birth date, email, contact) can be very direct, but you need to explain your educational and professional achievements clearly and precisely.
- Your bio should provide a clear picture about yourself, therefore focus on drafting it in the most concise way possible.
Perspective
- This point is very important.
- A bio should preferably be written from the perspective of a third-person.
- Of course, you may have come across unique profiles online, where people use the most stylish vocabulary to define themselves. Nothing wrong in doing so, but it is better to use the point of view of a third party.
- Don’t ever use the first person, as that sounds very informal and unprofessional.
- Always make the bio sound like someone else has written it for you, e.g., don’t use “I am, I, Me or Myself”, but “Ellie, She, or Her”.
- This should be remembered while talking about yourself for the first time, and then you can use either your full name or just the first name for other references.
- This style of writing a bio is however, very professional and can be ignored while blogging, or on social networks.
Simplicity
- Your readers should understand what and whom you are talking about.
- As mentioned in the earlier paragraph, you would have read many profiles on social networks, where the person tries to present himself in the most innovative manner possible.
- This style often includes difficult and out-of-the-context vocabulary, references from unknown sources, and hyperactive tones. Avoid this, preferably, since your readers need to read about a genuine version of you, not a made-up, stylish, social toy.
- The whole aim of learning how to write a bio on yourself is to describe yourself and your achievements in minimum yet effective words.
- Your personality should come across as impressive and strong so that they have a reason to like you. Make sure you don’t use too many difficult and lengthy words, as this can annoy a reader.
- Make use of very simple and common words where the reader gets the point immediately.
- It is not wrong to be a little humorous even in your professional bio, as readers will always enjoy light sentences (but don’t overdo it and DO NOT write jokes).
With these tips, you will definitely have a very impressive bio to be sent out! Thus, follow these pointers and get a product, which will make any reader want to know more about you.