How to Write an Obituary

Video Transcript

"Today's topic, is how to write an obituary. There are different ways to write an obituary. It depends on the individual, and where the obituary is placed. Some newspapers do a death notice, which allows you to put and pay for, whatever information you want to place into the paper. Some individual papers allow you to write a full obituary on the individual, and give a little life history or story, about the individual that has died, but there are some important facts, that need to always be placed in either the death notice, or the obituary. One, would be the individual's name. Next, would be optional, as to whether you place their age and date of birth, and then always place the date of death. Always place the individuals, or the survivors, of the person that has died, and then the funeral ceremony, when and where it will be held, and the possibility of whether there's a graveside that would be following the funeral ceremony, or in the case of a cremation, you need to list that the person would be cremated, and the possibility of listing the memorial service, if it will be held at a later time. Those are the important facts that you always place in a death notice, and an obituary, but the obituary allows you many times, to place other information also. Things such as the individual's favorite organizations, that they may have been a member of, club associations, what they did for a living, the number of years they worked there, how long they were retired, the year they retired, list those kinds of things. Maybe the individual is someone that loved to garden, loved to work in the garden, or flower garden, loved to fish, loved to hunt, and loved to play golf. List all of those things in the obituary. Those are things that you would consider to be the individual's accomplishments, and those things can also be listed in the obituary, but always remember, mainly, list the deceased name, their date of death, the survivors, and list when and where the funeral ceremony would be conducted, which would be the main things that are included in an obituary."