An essay is normally a way to express the writer’s opinion. Whether positive or negative. There are both formal and informal essays. There are many types like descriptive essay or narrative essay. A research paper is an educational type of writing that is based completely on research and true facts. It gives us the analysis, objective, aim and many more points of a topic to a deep extent. An essay and research paper are similar, but they are still very different. Each has their own qualities and type of writing. But both are very important in life, writing essays and research papers is a large part of school life, college applications and job assignments. Everybody should know how to write both these things. The below mentioned points can help one to understand the difference between them and to gate a clarity on both essay writing and research papers.
As said before, although they are similar to each other, they exhibit various roles in representing details and the circumstances when they are needed. The difference between an essay and a research paper orbits around the methods used along with giving attention to the necessities specified like the format, structure, and length. An essay is normally shorter than a research paper. Normally, an essay is for 750 or maximum 1000 words but a research paper can be 8 or more pages long. Characteristically, research papers sometimes revolve around 4000–6000 words, but it’s even more common to write short papers of around almost 2000 words or longer papers of over 10000 words. Therefore, research papers take much more time to write and are longer while essays are shorter.
Essays normally tell the reader about the writer’s point of view; it explains about how the writer feels about the topic whereas a research paper is not from a writer’s point of view. In the name research paper, the point is present in the name. One is supposed to do research and write about it. The research can be based on the point of view of a scientist or any other occupation. Therefore, an essay is mostly personal, but a research paper is impersonal. For writing an essay, usually in-depth research is not a matter to be considered. To know about the topic and what it means is just enough.
However, an analytical research paper needs in-depth knowledge and information along with a wide understanding of the given topic. Research, as mentioned before is long so it needs research to a great extent. Usually, the essays are used to improve the writing skills of a student. In school’s essays are given in exams, just to help improve the writing skills. Colleges mostly use them to assess a student’s knowledge of a specific area or their research abilities. Therefore, essays are written to enhance the literary skills of a person whereas research papers are written to give a deeper understanding of the project.
In essays students or writers can change the structure according to their comfort. For example, a person can write an essay for 3 paragraphs, 5 paragraphs or even 7 paragraphs. It depends on the respective points a person is adding and how much they want to write. In research papers a definite structure and format has to be followed which can’t be changed under any circumstances. There is an introduction, a main body, and a conclusion in essays. The main body is longest in most essays. Research paper’s structure normally consists of more parts, like the title, an introduction, approaches, consequences, arguments, assumptions, and suggestions. Essay can be formal as well as informal. Since they express ones point of view they can be informal. Taking into notice their gravity, research papers prefer formal, sometimes even plain language that spares the writing from any prejudice.
Finding the differences between essay and research paper is very easy, the most significant difference is the use of a stern system and research goals that no research paper can get finished without. An essay can be an individual consideration with no sources, hitherto every research paper must describe a problem whether small or big and fix the techniques that support to address and solve it efficiently along with effectively. Essays and research papers are very similar. Therefore, it is very important for us to know the difference between them and never get confused. The above-mentioned differences are the main ones. They will help us in writing both since we now have clarity on them. Both are equally important is our lives.
