Whether it be in high school or college, one might encounter situations to write both essays and research papers. So, the question arises… Who to ask for help or even more common how to do it in the first place??
Basically, essays are easier to pen down, considering they can be a maximum to 2000 words and never more than that and have a creative element to them. While research papers require one to go through a horrendous number of stuffs to take info from, analyze the available data and the finally pen it down in a very formal manner.
What is an Essay?
An essay can be defined as a piece of work where the point of view of the writer matters more than the factual evidences.. Usually, an argument is supported with at least a couple of evidences to support or go against it. They are usually short compared to research essays and are up to 6 to 7 paragraphs at the maximum.
Here are a few rules to remember, that helps to keep essays apart from any random piece of writing.
- Word limit is up to 2000 words or less
- It’s based on a topic or an essay prompt
- In some cases, they are written as responses to questions
- They are not complex.
- Simple headings and subheadings make it do
- They require the use of references, citations and quotes etc… for anything that is not a personal opinion of the author
- A subjective and passive tone is usually used
- Analyzing and criticizing a topic is the main aim of the activity
- Multimedia elements are not necessarily required
As usual, an essay’s basic structure goes somewhat like this; an introduction with a strong statement, a body with 3 to 5 paragraphs and a nice good conclusion where the whole thing is summed up and authors thoughts are penned down. No formal elements are required and the summing up is purely based on the authors reflection of the essay.
What is a Research Paper?
Though technically an essay only, the structure and the purpose of a research essay is to include info and synthesis based on data specific to topic. The external sources for resources could be books, articles, web sources or interviews by people or even surveys..
The main concept in here is to bring out a factual view on a topic based on a selection of various viewpoints and interpret the information in a formal manner to create an accessible and readable framework.
It’s essential that a research paper contain the following components:
- A methodology.. either quantitative or qualitative
- A theoretical model based writing
- A research question in the intro
- A literary review to explain the kind of info used
- Clear methods and objectives
- Results of the findings and aspects of the achievements that have proved helpful for your take on things
- An author’s viewpoint of possible results and further recommendations
- Include the limitations encountered
- A problem solution approach to address the subject
- Presence of valid and certified sources
Usually a research paper is about 50 pages long and sometimes even more than that. Therefore is required proper endnotes, footnotes, references etc. In the end a short biography of the author is essential to maintain the formality of the paper.
Essays can have a variety of forms and requires one to just describe, create and persuade the readers. On the whole it requires creative writing skills as compared to works of writing.
A piece of writing that is plagiarism free and requires in depth research about a topic is called a research paper. The paper itself includes the word “research” that means that a search is done repeatedly in various viewpoints and directions to collect an overall and thorough idea of the topic.
As one is striving for the best out of the best grades it’s important to choose the main part, the title effectively. A strong title that creates an impact on the audience will help you and the audience stay focused on the main point of the essay and not beat around the bush.
Those that take their time and effort to check and recheck all the points and structure their writing properly it creates and effective impact on the reader and doesn’t waste too much time on unnecessary information. Therefore it’s very important to take care of what is being written in the essay or paper and take the data from reliable sources and cite and refer them. That makes the essay or research paper complete.
By: Masoomi Santosh Nevgi
Write and Win: Participate in Creative writing Contest & International Essay Contest and win fabulous prizes.
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