Autobiography Examples for Students

A simple definition of the term autobiography, is 'a biography of self'. Thus, an autobiography is essentially written by the person himself, and is about his life. The term autobiography is quite generic in nature and several great personalities have written 'big books' as a collection of their personal experiences. Similarly, there are several authors and personalities who have written small essays and short stories to narrate some important experiences in their lives. Some people have also written their autobiography to serve some purpose, such as political propaganda or to narrate an account of some incidence or event. The good thing about an autobiography is that we get to know about the writer's emotions and thoughts quite easily. The following are the 3 classifications of autobiographies...

• The first category is basically of a sequential collection of memories of the writer since his childhood. Such autobiographies are the most common ones and, in my opinion, are really good books. If you are looking forward to learn something more about their life, then such autobiographies, are the best books that you can read, due to the fact that the book tells you how a great person lived. 'My Life' by Golda Meir, is an apt example of such an autobiography.
• The second category is the type of autobiography, which is just a collection of memories that revolve around one phenomenon, incidence or event. In such an autobiography, the writer focuses on the event or incidence that took place in is life. Such an account does not usually cover the childhood of the writer. 'Odyssey' by John Sculley is a good example of such an autobiographical book. In this book Sculley describes his career in Apple and Pepsi. Such an autobiography is often defined to be a 'Memoir'.
• The third category offers the reader a short story from one of the writers experiences. Such an autobiographical short story is basically, spanned over a couple of hours time. Such a short story is sometimes also known as an autobiographical account or short story. Ruskin Bond, wrote some really, delightful autobiographical short stories.

In the aforementioned categories the first category can be commented to be a true autobiography, because the word 'autobiography' which originates from the Greek language, literary means that an autobiography is a 'self life to write'. The remaining types are the two evolved types of autobiographies and are often not classified to be autobiographies by literary experts. You can go through some really good autobiography examples for students...

• Mein Kampf ~ Adolf Hitler
• Rickenbacker ~ Eddie Rickenbacker
• My Experiments With Truth ~ Mahatma Gandhi
• Daughter Of Destiny ~ Benazir Bhutto
• Dreams From My Father ~ Barack Obama
• Maverick ~ Ricardo Semler
• Wings of Fire ~ Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam
• Memoires De La Vie Privee ~ Benjamin Franklin

How to Write Autobiography Essay

As a student, you may ask the question, 'how to create autobiography essay?' Writing one is certainly difficult, but if you think about it in the right manner, you can write a fantastic one, which might even make other people emotional. Many people might feed you with some idiotic and nonsensical formats and methods with paragraph classification, if you come across any such page in a creative writing book, tear out the page, crumple it up and throw it away. Here's something that you should know, before you write one, these are not instructions, these are some thoughts...

• When man entered civilization, he lost his intuition or what was known as his sixth sense. In the later years, several emotions were lost such as killer instinct or extreme determination. Today a materialist world has forced us to forget the simple and important senses and emotions such as love and happiness. An autobiography does not talk of emotions but it makes us feel some of those emotions. A really successful autobiography, may it be a big book or a small essay, makes the reader feel the emotion through the language, it awakens the soul within the man, which has gone to sleep.
• In everyday life, we come across many events and incidences, the society in itself is a collection of millions of stories of millions of people. An important aspect of any autobiography is 'experience' of the writer, put down in words. The experience should be later charged with the right emotions, like an experience of a fight or quarrel can be charged with anger, then sadness and later frustration followed by remorse. So, basically, when you write, be true to the emotions and put them in proper words.
• Man goes through two phases in life, the phase of 'self' and the phase of 'I'. The latter is the phase where we start connecting to the world at large. In an autobiography, the description of the world and your connection with the world is an important aspect.
• Lastly, avoid making the write-up monotonous. Let it be a chain of your thoughts. Hence do not write an 'introduction', 'conclusion' or anything like that. Just write what you feel and think, just let them be in the right order. Ruskin Bond has some autobiography examples for college students to his credit, which you can enjoy. An autobiography is a brook that turns into a larger stream which becomes a river. Basically, let the language flow at its own pace.

You can take a look at autobiographies of various famous and prominent personalities to gain vital insight into the way those people thought and conducted themselves.