ShmoopTube

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[Dino and Coop singing]

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There are a whole lot of biographies out there. [Girl walking to the library]

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Seriously.

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Just head to your local library and check out the biography section.

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It’s a sea of books! [Guy water skiing on a pile of books]

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…Just don't try and waterski in it, …sounds painful. [The guy is hit by a wave of books and falls over]

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Anyway, these biographies can be about important and interesting people from history like Maya [Biographies on a shelf]

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Angelou, Winston Churchill, Helen Keller and Abraham Lincoln.

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And yes, you can even find biographies about people who aren't quite as important. [Kim Kardashian biography]

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Unless you really care about Kim Kardashian's selfie technique.

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Then by all means, check it out. [Girl taking a selfie with a selfie stick]

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But while many biographies are written about people that were already famous, sometimes

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biographies can also make people famous by bringing attention and acclaim to people who [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

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might otherwise have been forgotten by history.

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Pretty cool, right?

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Biographies can be especially useful when written about people who probably weren't

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given a whole lot of credit back when they were alive.

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Which is good news for basically any woman or racial minority living over fifty years ago. [Woman taking picture with selfie stick while other woman looks unimpressed]

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But finding enough information to fill a book on someone who history kind of forgot?

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It's not super easy.

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It'd be like trying to write a biography about your great great great great grandmother. [Guy typing on the computer about his grandmother]

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She was probably a cool lady…after all, she is related to you…but do you even know her name?

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Yup.

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Like we said, it's not a super easy task.

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Researchers and historians spend countless hours sifting through primary sources that [Girl sat in a huge pile of books reading]

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aren't always accessible to the public, all in an effort to bring light to those forgotten

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by history.

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Once done, these biographers produce what is called a “secondary source” in the [Dino pointing at a blackboard]

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form of a biography, which is usually more to the point and accessible for the general

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public than a primary source.

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Usually.

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You never know when a biography might have fangs.

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Or rabies. [Rabid dog and man looks scared]

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Anyway.

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Think of the many primary sources as ingredients like flour, eggs and cocoa powder.

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You probably don’t wanna eat all that stuff on its own.

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Unless you want to use your mouth as a mixing bowl. [Guy with ingredients in his mouth]

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But we don't recommend that.

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A biographer can turn all of those ingredients into into an easy-to-consume chocolate cake.

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Unlike the old and complex primary sources, secondary sources are often written in interesting, [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

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creative, and easy-to-understand ways in order to appeal to everyone, whether or not they're

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familiar with the topic.

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So go check out the cake – uh, I mean biography – section in the library. [Girl walking in the library]

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And while you're doing that, we're going to try and start a cake section in our local library. [People holding up slices of cake in the library]

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