Dialogue

a written composition in which two or more characters are represented as conversing.

Here are the main rules for writing dialogue:

1. Each speaker gets a new paragraph. Every time someone speaks, you show this by
creating a new paragraph. Yes, even if your characters are only saying one word, they
get new paragraphs.
2. Each paragraph is indented. The only exception for this is if it’s the start of a chapter
or after a scene break, where the first line is never indented, including with dialogue.
3. Punctuation for what’s said goes inside the quotation marks. Any time the
punctuation is a part of the person speaking, they go inside the quotes so the reader
knows how the dialogue is said.
4. Long speeches with several paragraphs don’t have end quotations. You’ll see more
on this below, but overall, if one character is speaking for so long they have separate
paragraphs, the quotation marks on the end are removed, but you start the next
paragraph with them.
5. Use single quotes if the person speaking is quoting someone else. If you have a
character who says, “Man, don’t you love it when girls say, ‘I’m fine’?”, the single
quotes indicate what someone else says.
6. Skip the small talk and focus on important information only. Unless that small talk
is relevant for character development, skip it and get to the point, this isn’t real life
and will actually feel more fake if you have too much.
7.
BIOGRAPHY.
A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more
than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a
person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a
biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of their life,
including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of the subject's
personality.
Biographical works are usually non-fiction, but fiction can also be used to portray a
person's life. One in-depth form of biographical coverage is called legacy writing. Works
in diverse media, from literature to film, form the genre known as biography.

Types of Biographies

You can find biographies written as children’s books, magazine stories, or novels. An
abbreviated biography is called a biographical sketch.

Here are some ways to format your biography, aside from chronological order.

 By topic - Focus on the topics that affected the person's life. Detail each major event
one by one.
 By theme - A thematic biography uses an overarching point of view or a
characteristic of the subject to tie all life events back to a central theme.
  Through interviews - Talk to your subject, if you can. Ask people close to the
subject what they thought of the subject, the people around the subject, and key
events. Relay the story through these first-person accounts.

 In media res - In media res is a literary term meaning "in the middle of things".
Stories written in media res do not lead up to the main event but begin in the middle
of the tale and work backwards to hit on crucial elements, only to then resume a
forward-moving account.

 Your name
 Date of birth
 Location / address
 Parents and siblings
 Your current job title
 Your company name or personal brand statement
 Your hometown
 Your alma mater
 Your personal and professional goals
 A relevant achievement or accomplishment
 Your hobbies
 Your skills and areas of expertise

Biography example.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, (born September 15, 1977, Enugu, Nigeria), Nigerian
author whose work drew extensively on the Biafran war in Nigeria during the late
1960s.

Early in life Adichie, the fifth of six children, moved with her parents to Nsukka,
Nigeria. A voracious reader from a young age, she found Things Fall Apart by
novelist and fellow Igbo Chinua Achebe transformative. After studying medicine for a
time in Nsukka, in 1997 she left for the United States, where she studied
communication and political science at Eastern Connecticut State University (B.A.,
2001). Splitting her time between Nigeria and the United States, she received
a master’s degree in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University and studied
African history at Yale University.

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

An autobiography is a non-fiction story of a person’s life, written by the subject themselves

from their own point of view. Autobiographies are a subgenre of the broader category of
biographies, but a standard biography is written by someone other than its subject—most
commonly a historian—whereas an autobiography is written by the subject.

Autobiographies are popular among the general reading public. A newly-released

autobiography by a current political figure can easily top the New York Times bestseller list.
Certain autobiographical writing, such as Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, can
endure for well over a century and become part of the literary canon.
Autobiography vs. Biography
Whereas biographies are written about someone other than the writer, autobiographies take
a more introspective approach. Famous biographers include Doris Kearns Goodwin , who
has written about Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, and Robert Caro, who has
written about Lyndon Johnson and Robert Moses. Biographers are known for developing
great expertise about their subject. By contrast, an autobiographer only needs total expertise
on one subject: themselves.
Autobiography vs. Memoir
An autobiography is closely related to the nonfiction format known as a memoir, but the
two forms are not identical . Most notably, an autobiography is a first person account of its
author’s entire life. A memoir does not document the memoirist’s entire life story but rather
a selected era or a specific multi-era journey within that author’s life. Alternatively, a
memoir may concern its author’s entire life, but present it through a particular lens—
perhaps highlighting the events leading up to and surrounding their professional career. As
such, a memoir is comparatively focused when considered side-by-side with an
autobiography.
For instance, a professional athlete may document her entire life in her autobiography,
while giving special emphasis to an era she believes will grab the reader’s interest, such as
the summer she competed in the Olympic Games. If that same athlete had opted for memoir
writing instead, she may have focused the entire memoir around those Olympic games.
Rather than function as the story of the author’s life from birth to the present, her memoir
would focus on retelling the period in her life for which she is most known.

6 Things to Include in an Autobiography

An autobiography should include all the most important details of your life story. This does
not mean it should contain every tiny sliver of minutiae; a self-aware autobiographer will
take stock of certain moments in their own life that may be interesting to themselves but not
to an audience of strangers.

Here are some key elements to consider including in your autobiography:

1. A description of your personal origin story: This can include your hometown, your
family history, some key family members and loved ones, and touchstone moments
in your education.
2. Significant experiences: Add accounts of each personal experience that shaped your
worldview and your approach to life in the present day.
3. Detailed recollections of episodes from your professional life: Often these are the
turning points that your autobiography will be known for—the moments that would
inspire someone to pick up your book in the first place. Be sure to give them extra
care and attention.
4. A personal story of failure: Follow it up with a good story of how you responded to
that failure.
 5. A unique and compelling title: Steer clear of generic phrases like “my
autobiography” or “the story of me, my family, and famous people I know.”
6. A first person narrative voice: Third person writing is appropriate for traditional
biographies, but in the autobiography format, third person voice can read as
presumptuous.

What is Debating?

A debate is a structured argument. Two sides speak alternately for and against a particular
contention usually based on a topical issue. Unlike the arguments you might have with your
family or friends however, each person is allocated a time they are allowed to speak for and
any interjections are carefully controlled. The subject of the dispute is often prearranged so
you may find yourself having to support opinions with which you do not normally agree.
You also have to argue as part of a team, being careful not to contradict what others on your
side have said.

Why debate?

It is an excellent way of improving speaking skills and is particularly helpful in providing

experience in developing a convincing argument. Those of you who are forced to argue
against your natural point of view realize that arguments, like coins, always have at least two
sides.

The Basic Debating Skills

Style

Style is the manner in which you communicate your arguments. This is the most basic part of
debating to master. Content and strategy are worth little unless you deliver your material in a
confident and persuasive way.

Speed

It is vital to talk at a pace which is fast enough to sound intelligent and allow you time to say
what you want, but slow enough to be easily understood.

Tone

Varying tone is what makes you sound interesting. Listening to one tone for an entire
presentation is boring.

Volume

Speaking quite loudly is sometimes a necessity, but it is by no means necessary to shout

through every debate regardless of context. There is absolutely no need speak any more
loudly than the volume at which everyone in the room can comfortably hear you. Shouting
does not win debates. Speaking too quietly is clearly disastrous since no one will be able to
hear you.

Clarity

The ability to concisely and clearly express complex issues is what debating is all about. The
main reason people begin to sound unclear is usually because they lose the “stream of
thought” which is keeping them going. It is also important to keep it simple. While long
words may make you sound clever, they may also make you incomprehensible.

Use of notes and eye contact

Notes are essential, but they must be brief and well organized to be effective. There is
absolutely no point in trying to speak without notes. Of course, notes should never become
obtrusive and damage your contact with the audience, nor should they ever be read from
verbatim. Most people sketch out the main headings of their speech, with brief notes under
each.

When writing notes for rebuttal during the debate, it is usually better to use a separate sheet
of paper so you can take down the details of what the other speakers have said and then
transfer a rough outline onto the notes you will actually be using.

Eye contact with the audience is very important, but keep shifting your gaze. No one likes to
be stared at.

Content

Content is what you actually say in the debate. The arguments used to develop your own
side’s case and rebut the opposite side’s. The information on content provided below is a
general overview of what will be expected when you debate. The final logistics of how long
you will be debating, how many people will be in your group, and how the debate will
unfold (ie: which team speaks first etc.), will all be decided by your tutorial leader.

Case (argument)- the whole

Introduction - The case your group is making must be outlined in the introduction. This
involves stating your main arguments and explaining the general thrust of your case. This
must be done briefly since the most important thing is to get on and actually argue it. It is also
a good idea to indicate the aspects of the subject to be discussed by each of the team
members.

Conclusion - At the end, once everyone has spoken, it is useful to briefly summarize what
your group has said and why.
Case (argument)- the parts

Having outlined the whole of your argument, you must then begin to build a case (the parts).
The best way to do this is to divide your case into between two and four arguments (or divide
your case based on the number of people in your group). You must justify your arguments
with basic logic, worked examples, statistics, and quotes. Debating is all about the strategy
of “proof”. Proof, or evidence, supporting your assertion is what makes it an argument. There
are a number of ways of dividing up cases according to groups of arguments (eg
political/economic/social or moral/practical or international/regional etc.) or just according to
individual arguments if you can’t group any together. Under each of these basic headings
you should then explain the reasoning behind the argument and justify it using the methods
outlined above. It is usually best to put the most important arguments first. Here is an
example of a case outline:

“The media exert more influence over what people think than the government does. This is
true for three reasons. Firstly, most people base their votes on what they see and hear in the
media. Secondly, the media can set the political agenda between elections by deciding what
issues to report and in how much detail. Thirdly, the media have successfully demonized
politicians over the last ten years so that now people are more likely to believe journalists
than politicians.”

All of the arguments in this case outline are debatable (almost immediately you can see the
counter-arguments), but they give the case a wide range which cover all kinds of issues. The
trick is not to come up with a watertight case, but a well argued one. Think: “Can I argue
that?”

Rebuttal – the parts

Arguments can be factually, morally or logically flawed. They may be misinterpretations or

they may also be unimportant or irrelevant. A team may also contradict one another or fail to
complete the tasks they set themselves. These are the basics of rebuttal and almost every
argument can be found wanting in at least one of these respects. Here are a few examples:

1. “Compulsory euthanasia at age 70 would save the country money in pensions and
healthcare.” This is true, but is morally flawed.

2. “Banning cigarette product placement in films will cause more young people to smoke
because it will make smoking more mysterious and taboo.” This is logically flawed, the ban
would be more likely to stop the steady stream of images which make smoking seem
attractive and glamorous and actually reduce the number of young people smoking.

3. “My partner will then look at the economic issues...” “Blah..blah..blah...(5 minutes later
and still no mention of the economic issues)” This is a clear failure to explain a major part of
the case and attention should be drawn to it. Even better is when a speaker starts with, “to
win this debate there are three things I must do…”. If the speaker fails to do any of those
things you can then hang her or him by the noose by repeating their exact words – by his or
her own admission he or she cannot have won the debate.
Rebuttal – the whole:

It is very important to have a good perspective of the debate and to identify what the key
arguments are. It isn’t enough to rebut a few random arguments here and there. Of course
the techniques used above are invaluable but they must be used appropriately. There are a
number of things you should do to systematically break down a team’s case:

1. Ask yourself how the other side have approached the case. Is their methodology flawed?

2. Consider what tasks the other side set themselves (if any) and whether they have in fact
addressed these.

3. Consider what the general emphasis of the case is and what assumptions it makes. Try to
refute these.

4. Take the main arguments and do the same thing. It is not worth repeating a point of
rebuttal that has been used by someone else already, but you can refer to it to show that the
argument has not stood up. It is not necessary to correct every example used. You won’t
have time and your aim is to show the other side’s case to be flawed in the key areas.