Editing Autobiography (section)

==Definition==
The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by [[William Taylor (scholar)|William Taylor]] in 1797 in the [[English language|English]] [[Periodical publication|periodical]] ''The [[Monthly Review (London)|Monthly Review]]'', when he suggested the word as a hybrid, but condemned it as "pedantic". However, its next recorded use was in its present sense, by [[Robert Southey]] in 1809.<ref>"autobiography", ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]''</ref> Despite only being named early in the nineteenth century, first-person autobiographical writing originates in antiquity. Roy Pascal differentiates autobiography from the periodic self-reflective mode of journal or diary writing by noting that "[autobiography] is a review of a life from a particular moment in time, while the diary, however reflective it may be, moves through a series of moments in time".<ref name=Pascal>{{cite book|last = Pascal| first = Roy|title = Design and Truth in Autobiography|publisher = [[Harvard University Press]] | year = 1960 | location = [[Cambridge, Massachusetts|Cambridge]] }}</ref> Autobiography thus takes stock of the autobiographer's life from the moment of composition. While biographers generally rely on a wide variety of documents and viewpoints, autobiography may be based entirely on the writer's memory. The [[memoir]] form is closely associated with autobiography but it tends, as Pascal claims, to focus less on the self and more on others during the autobiographer's review of their own life.<ref name=Pascal/>

Autobiographical works are by nature subjective. The inability—or unwillingness—of the author to accurately recall memories has in certain cases resulted in misleading or incorrect information. Some sociologists and psychologists have noted that autobiography offers the author the ability to recreate history.