An example of research conducted in writing a contemporary biography

By Dennis Mellersh

The ability and requirement to do research is one of the major components in writing any non-fiction book, but is particularly important in writing biography.

I have touched on the subject of research in previous posts about writing a book and writing a biography, and this article also is a brief analysis rather than definitive treatment of how to do research for a book.

Rather, I thought it would be useful to outline the research methods described in a recent biography about a contemporary individual.

In the book Steve Jobs*, the author, Walter Isaacson, outlines in considerable detail in his introduction and in the notes at the end of the book the research he conducted to write this particular biography.

Most of the seminal interviews were done before Jobs died, and during the course of researching the book the author says he “ended up having more than forty interviews and conversations with him…some were formal ones in his Palo Alto living room, others were done during long walks and drives, or by telephone. During my two years of visits he became increasingly intimate and revealing…”

At the end of the book in a section titled Sources, the author lists about 100 people with whom he conducted interviews for background information. In the Bibliography section Isaacson also lists approximately 40 books he consulted.

In another 20-page section, the author indicates, chapter by chapter, the sources for the information given in each chapter, and this includes some source material, such as articles, not cited in the previous acknowledgement sections.

This particular biographical book serves as a good example of the type research that you might need to do if you want to write a serious biography on a contemporary person.

Writing a book about an historical individual who is no longer alive would obviously be much more confined to written documentary source material.

* Information for this article was sourced from Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, Simon & Shuster, New York, 2011