Documentation is very important for all the kinds of work we do. This acts as a proof of concept and also stores the required information in a more sorted manner which can be used for future purposes as well. This acts as a set record and can be very helpful and handy whenever required. Similarly maintaining required documents for the respective work is also very essential. Results can be stored in a manual format or in a digital format.
Research papers are written in a standard format which follows the set standard operating protocol for research paper writing. There is no such condition for writing an essay since it does not follow any set format for writing. Research paper includes information and content on the experiment performed, abstract, index, introduction, procedure followed, literature survey performed, work pipeline, objectives for the undertaken project, results obtained, discussion on the results, future scope, learning outcomes, acknowledgements, bibliography, references and citations whereas an essay includes a solid introduction, body of about 2 to 3 paragraphs and a decisive conclusion. Essays need not extend upto 4 or 5 pages rather can be summarised in a brief manner which can be concise for 2 to 3 pages while a research report has to be very detailed and should contain a minimum of about 10 pages which includes all the information about the project undertaken from the very beginning to the end. Essay writing involves free flow of thoughts and information and does not involve any specific format of writing. This includes some abstract feelings and metaphors which tries to invoke the inner feelings and tries to connect with people easily. Essays can be easily written by everybody irrespective of age, but research papers are generally written by college students, professors, research scholars and young kids find it difficult to write a detailed and well formatted research paper. Research papers include graphs, plots and images as proof of concept and evidence for the work done which is not necessary to be included in an essay. Writing a research paper falls under a professional category while essay writing is a recreational activity which may or may not be taken up as a profession. Some research papers are usually confidential and cannot be shared with all because of data breach or misuse of data but essays can be easily published on their own websites. Considering the complexity in writing, essay writing is a simple process compared to a research paper which is much more complex and detailed. Essays do not highlight one’s own work or accomplishment while research papers usually highlight an individual’s work and all the effort, labour and expertise put in to get the results. While writing an essay, quotes, comical elements, dialogues, poems, rhyming lines can be included which makes the essays more creative, novel and unique but these elements cannot be included in a research paper. Topics chosen for writing an essay and a research paper are very different and cannot be similar. Essays are usually written on the current happening events and general topics while research papers are written on titles related to current research topics and based on the current developments in science, technology and engineering. Essays can be written in any vernacular language or native language and there is no restriction on this. Generally research reports are written in universal languages and very rarely in native, vernacular languages.
Research papers are the kind of educational literature articles that contain end to end information about the experiments conducted for a particular time on various science, technology, manufacturing, research and development, and engineering related subjects and topics. It is a mandate that references and citations should be mentioned in a research paper since it undergoes a lot of literature survey and research before starting the work. Essay writing can be automated by using the support of essay bots and other softwares which can automatically generate numerous paragraphs for the given titles. Required paragraphs can be selected and some manual curation can be done on them to rephrase and reformat the words, lines and sentences. There is no option of automation in research paper writing since it is an individual work and cannot be taken from any sources. The self performed activities and tasks should be reported and recorded in a research paper. Proofreading process is more elaborate while writing a research paper because it is a part of professional writing and also is part of scientific writing which gets reviewed and read by highly skilled and trained professionals. Essays can be written as part of contests and competitions while this provision is not given for research paper writing. Research papers can be presented in conferences and seminars which is a consortium of skilled and knowledged professionals, which contains a separate board of members with the respective background of study and field of interest. Essays can be written from a personal point of view while research papers involve solid inference and analysis on particular subject matters. Essay writing enhances and improves the writing skills of writers and encourages more people to write and brings out the inner hidden talent in them to write while research writing evokes thought processes in each individual and helps to increase the knowledge and wisdom about particular topics which involves deep dive research along with information gathering and curation.
Although research papers and essays differ with respect to format and design, the main purpose of writing both is conveying information and knowledge to everyone. Both of these involve thorough plagiarism checks since it is unethical to copy other’s work and duplicate the information without proper citations. Both are sources of providing content which are highly enriching and help in providing knowledge about varied topics that are happening in the world. Both of these try to uplift the current happenings and the trends all over the world which can be written by people residing in any part of the world irrespective of gender, race, location etc and can be easily accessed by all.
