What root means writing: Graph. What word names the part of a piece of writing that begins with a topic sentence, describes the topic in detail, then ends with a concluding sentence: paragraph. What word names what someone has written when he or she signed his or her own name on something: autograph. What word names the type of book that was written about a person's life but was written by a different person than the subject of the book: biography. What word names the device that scientists who study earthquakes will look at when they want to know how strong an earthquake was: seismograph. What word names the machine that turns the writing on plastic disks into music you can hear: phonograph. What word names the hobby or study of how light records an image using a camera: photography. If the root auto means self and the root bio means life, what does the word autobiography mean: a person writing about their own life. mapmaking; the writing involved in making maps or charts: cartography. What vocabulary word do the words read and read represent: Homograph