Students around the world strive for knowledge. They learn new things everyday. Exploring and coming up with questions is a crucial part of their life. While searching for the answers these students and other such people gain more experience and become capable of sharing their newly found thoughts and ideas. There are various platforms and ways in which they can do so. Practicing and sharing knowledge is one of the core reasons for the development of society. Most academic institutions and other such organizations offer ways in which people can get a chance to share their ideas and learn something new. Essays and research papers are a few examples.
“One might walk through a thousand ideas, but the ones that are written are actually fruitful”.
An essay is a piece of writing that helps assemble the facts and ideas and convey them to the audience. Whatever is learned can be portrayed through it along with the writer’s own creativity and imagination. It helps them understand their level of knowledge and their capability to express and share them.
Essays can be of various types, ranging from the one with actual facts to the one based purely on imagination. Some require in-depth study and understanding of a topic while some are written based upon the author’s views and morals. An essay has a title and sometimes the topics to be covered inside it are also mentioned.
A research paper on the other hand is any information presented in a written form after a proper research or study. The research paper often explains the subject from an academic point of view. It can be written for a new discovery or simply after the analysis of the title. The points in a research paper are well explained with proper evidence. It is presented in order to propagate any type of information. It is a report created after a well established study.
The main difference between an essay and a research paper is that an essay can be both factual and fictional whereas a research paper is mostly a report based on facts. The raw emotions of the author can be illustrated in the essay but in a research paper the emotions can only support the method of understanding and researching about the topic.
Essays can be written in one go if all the information is collected while a research paper is developed gradually after contributing required time in the study. Essay writing requires experience whereas a research paper is mostly supported by practicals. While writing a research paper the author can work together with a team but in an essay the author usually works alone.
The essay mainly has three parts. An introduction, the body and a conclusion. It can include quotations as well as data from existing studies. Here, the writer is free to view his or her own thoughts or analyze the existing ideologies about the topic. The introduction explains the title or tells a story. It often includes the points that are to be mentioned in the body.
The body explains the subject in detail with elements like questions for the readers or the connection between characters and their actions. It is mostly based upon the feeling of the author that the reader needs to interpret. The essays rarely include any picture or illustration. The essay has a conclusion that summarizes everything once again and sends a message. The readers should be able to draft their own ideas upon reading the conclusion.
A research paper on the other hand explains the facts straightforward. It often uses self-created data and analytical work. It uses graphs and illustrations for a better explanation. These are then presented to the audience in order to teach about the subject. For writing a research paper one must know the topic to study upon.
Once the topic is chosen the writer needs to find out what questions can be asked related to the topic. In order to find the answers to these questions, the required research or study should be conducted. Once the points to be included are drafted, they should be assembled as the final product. The final product must provide all the necessary information about the topic.
Both essays and research papers have proved to be beneficial in conducting life changing studies and propagating different ideologies. They are being used widely all around the world and are contributing to the overall growth and development of the society. These are kept as written records that can help generations to prosper because “a platform that can nourish, record and propagate knowledge can prove to be a revolution in the field of education.”
By: Nisha Yadav
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