Academica author biography pages
Writing your academic biography
An academic biography is a concise, informative paragraph that highlights your professional identity, research interests, and significant accomplishments. It’s a crucial component of your academic presence, often required when proposing conference abstracts, contributing to edited collections, or publishing articles and books. Even early in your research career, it's worth thinking about crafting your bio. This blog post offers five different formulations to help you create an effective academic biography: the short-and-sweet bio, the brief bio, the detailed bio, the independent scholar bio, and the academic-adjacent bio. Each type has its own strengths and ideal contexts, meaning that you have a suitable version ready for any academic opportunity that comes your way!
The short-and-sweet bio
Formula: [Name] is a [position] at [institution].
Example: Big Bird is a doctoral student at Sesame College.
When to use it: You can never go too wrong with the short-and-sweet approach. Scholars at all levels use it for books, articles, conference papers, blog posts… everything, really.
Why it’s good: It’s quick to update and doesn’t require much thinking.
The brief bio
Formula: [Name] is a [position] at [institution] + main research interests include [this] and [this] + has recently [done this thing] + tweets at [Twitter handle] OR [Name] is a [position] at [institution] + [doctoral/current] research project studies [this] and [this] + tweets at [Twitter handle].
Example: Dr Abby Cadabby is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of the Upper West Side. Her main research interests include a decolonial approach to Fairy Studies, and she recently published the edited volume Rhyme Time: Creative Methods (2023, Sesame Books). She tweets at @AbbyCadabbySST.
When to use it: You’ll probably use this one quite often – it’s my favourite. Like the short-and-sweet approach, the brief biography (around 50 words or
Unless you’re a household name author (Steven King, JK Rowling, Malcolm Gladwell), most people buying your book won’t know who you are.
So how will they learn about you?
And why is this even important?
That’s what this blog post will explain: how to properly write it, and why your author bio matters.
Why Your About The Author Is So Important
Even though very few authors think about it, and even fewer publishing guides talk about it, the “Author Bio” section impacts sales, reputation, book marketing and social media.
“Author reputation” is consistently cited as one of the main factors that influence a book buying decision. If you’re seen as an authority on your book topic, readers will buy your book and read it. One of the best ways to be seen as an authority is to have a great Author Bio.
For business the short bio can sometimes be more important than what’s actually in the book—the sad but true reality is that more people will read your author bio than your actual book.
It takes a long time to read a book, but it’s very easy to make a snap judgment based on a short paragraph, and most people do that.
This is doubly true for media and social media. Most people in media work very hard under tight deadlines and don’t have time to read long books or even pitch emails. But a good author bio cuts right to the point by saying: this is an important person I need to pay attention to.
How To Write Your Author Bio
Writing about yourself is a task that many even full time writers shy away from. Don’t make this mistake. A few simple steps can get an effective bio that will impress interested readers and help sell your book:
Step 1. Mention your credentials on your book subject:
It’s important to establish your credentials in your book’s topic area.
For example, if you’re writing a diet book, mention things like professional degrees, nutrition training or accomplishments, places you’ve worked, awards you’ve won, To write a great author bio, you need to know your target audience, cater to your genre, brag (but not too much), keep it brief, and call the reader to action. When you’re self-publishing on Amazon, you need to put some serious thought into the author bio on your Amazon book page. Don’t haphazardly throw together some sentences and hit the publish button. The author bio isn’t your most important tool. (The most essential tools are the book reviews, book cover, and synopsis/blurb.) But the author bio is another critical tool that you shouldn’t leave out. Can I just leave my author bio out? No, you cannot just leave out your author bio, even if you wrote a short story or novella. It looks unprofessional, scares away potential readers, foregoes an opportunity to connect with your target audience, and leads to fewer book sales. Plus, writing a good author bio doesn’t take that long. If you’re not Grisham, or Godin, or Ferriss, or Fleming, very few people will buy a novel by you purely based on name recognition. So put a little work into your bio, and you won’t regret it. Note: The Author Bio is just one of many parts of a book. I have a whole series of posts on the subject, and I highly recommend you check those out as well! For clarification, on Amazon, there are 2 kinds of bio: The advice in this post is aimed at your bio on your individual book pages, although much of it will still be relevant to your main Author Page. I've actually been writing and formatting books for a long time. Over 10 years so far, and counting. But that's not the real reason, because there ar Once articles have been selected and accepted for publication each year, authors will be asked to submit a biographical statement to be included in the Advocates’ Forum. The biographical statement should include the author(s) full name. In addition, it is also appropriate to discuss your personal history, academic program and/or field placement, and interest in the article’s subject. The biographical statement may not exceed 75 words. Below is an example taken from the 2009 volume of the Advocates’ Forum: "Kathryn Saclarides is a second-year social administration student at the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. She received a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and Spanish from Vanderbilt University and a master’s degree in bioethics from La Universidad Pontificia de Comillas in Madrid, Spain. Her current field placement is with the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC). She is interested in migration patterns, ethnic neighborhoods, and transnational communities." The abstract should appear on the second page of your manuscript, immediately following the title page. The abstract should briefly summarize the argument advanced in your manuscript, and should be limited to no more than 100 words. For additional guidance on composing abstracts, refer to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Below is an example taken from an issue of Advocates’ Forum (Charlotte L. Hamilton, “Anti-Drug Legislation and the Rising Incarceration of Women: Recommendations for Future Sentencing Reform,” Advocates’ Forum [2005]: 33-43). The Anti-Drug Abuse Acts of 1986 and 1988 led to a rapid increase in the number of incarcerated Americans. The rate of female incarceration has risen at a particularly high rate over the past 20 years. This article discusses the evolution of drug sentenc How to Write an Author Bio [With Examples and Templates]
Why Should You Trust Me?
Examples of Biographical Statement and Abstract
Biographical Statement
Abstract