Term Papers and Essays

Term Papers and Essays: Similarities and Differences

Studying different disciplines does not mean only visiting lectures and reading various text books and papers. Frankly speaking, this process is far more difficult. To get good knowledge in a certain subject you should make the deep study of it. So, in what way can you do that? Of course, by means of making your own research! That is the purpose of different reports, research papers, term papers and essays that you have to write while studying. Of course, they are different in number of pages and design, writing of each of them takes a different period of time: form several days to several months. But each of them is called to teach you to investigate a certain issue, to analyze the information given and to make your conclusions. Let’s try to compare two of these academic works: term papers and essays.

Term papers and essays: similarities

There are also other things except those mentioned above that make term papers and essays similar.

1. Whether you have to write a term paper or an essay, the first thing you have to do is to think over a paper topic. You should find information concerning the issue you are going to research and study it properly.
2. Term papers as well as essays should have the logical structure. The main parts that they should include are: introduction, main body and conclusion.
3. Both types of works should be written in the proper style and format that are required.
4. Term papers and essays are researches of students that should have the actual value and give some results. You should carry out each research thoroughly and attentively.

There are also a lot of differences between term papers and essays. It is quite obvious as these are different kinds of academic papers.

What is an essay?

Writing an essay means that you study a certain issue that you consider to be interesting and actual. You put your viewpoints and suggestions regarding this issue into several pages. All three parts of your essay should be logically built and connected. You are supposed to use different parenthetical words and phrases (for example, first and foremost, besides, next, finally, moreover) for this purpose.

What is a term paper?

A term paper is your research of some problem that you are supposed to carry out within a certain period of time (a semester, for example). Your term paper should also include title page, contents, reference list and appendices, except three main parts that were mentioned above. Besides, the main body of a term paper should consist of several sections and subsections. While writing a term paper you should use different graphics, tables, pictures or diagrams. You should state all these visual aids in the appendices. They will be helpful in representing of your research results.

So, it became clear that a term paper suggests deeper study of an issue than an essay, although both kinds of academic works are of great importance in the process of studying.