WRITING LONGER PAPERS in GERMAN

• If the person is still alive, it is "Er/sie ist geboren."
• If the person is dead, it is Er/sie wurde geboren."

• im Jahr 1997 or
• 1997

• it is always im Juli, im August etc.

• Cities and countries are not considered to have an article unless they specifically do, like die Schweiz or die Türkei.
• Therefore if you are using them with prepositions such as in, the correct word is simply in (NOT im), for example in Berlin, in Deutschland, etc.

• The comma.
  • In enumerations, the last item is not set off by a comma if preceded by und or oder.
    • Klaus, Margot und/oder Renate haben einen Preis gewonnen.
  • All dependent clauses are set off by commas.
    • Ich weiss, dass er jetzt zu Hause ist.
    • Das ist ein Film, den ich sehen möchte.
    • Die Zeitung, die ich heute gekauft habe, ist verschwunden.
  • Adverbs and prepositional phrases are normally not set off by commas.
    • Natürlich weiss er das.
    • Zum Glück war Margot zu Hause.
    • Nach vielen Jahren schwerer Arbeit ist mein Vater endlich in den Ruhestand getreten.
  • The comma is used as a decimal pointt.
    • 3,50 (read drei Komma fünf null) = 3.50 (three point five O)
• Punctuation of direct quotations
  • Direct quotations are preceded by a colon: Er sagte: "Ich habe keine Zeit."
  • As in English, the end quote follows a period, question mark, or exclamation point, but unlike English, it precedes a comma: "Ich habe keine Zeit", sagte er.

• The tense which should dominate in the Biography part of your Trimesterarbeit is SIMPLE PAST, not PRESENT PERFECT. That is, you must write "er ging" and not "er ist gegangen".
• In retelling your story, you can choose either simple past or present for the dominant tense. This is something special for retelling literary texts. For example: Little Red Riding Hood went into the forest. OR Little Red Riding Hood goes into the forest.
• The most important thing is to be consistent; don't mix tenses.

Why the simple past? The simple past is the past tense used for formal writing. The present perfect is the past tense used for conversation. You are writing formally here, ergo simple past!