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The difference between an essay and a term paper

  • July 24, 2022 2:59 AM PDT

    Many students, when they come to university and receive their first essay writing assignment, begin to deliberately confuse this work with a term project. Today, we are going to tell you what the difference is between a term paper and an essay, so that students can avoid a number of mistakes writes 99papers review.

    First, let's take a detailed look at what an essay is and what characteristic features this work has.

    Specifics of writing an essay

    Essay literally deciphered as an opus or essay, and there are also opinions that an essay is in fact a small essay. And this essay has a free character. It conveys the author's opinion on this or that issue, while a term paper describes specific facts or research, but the author sums up these studies. That is, it is safe to say that a term paper has a more scientific character than an essay. It refers more to essays written in school, but at university, there are much more requirements for essays.

    An essay can be constructed according to pre-planned features:

    The essay addresses a specific problem or topic. If the research is supposed to be about a broad concept, it will no longer be an essay, but rather a term paper.

    While writing an essay, the author approaches an issue from an individual point of view. He expresses his opinion. There may even be a certain principle of emotionality. If we talk about the term paper, here absolutely no emotions are welcomed. Only facts, results and conclusions.

    The essay may have a pronounced philosophical character, or a description from the point of view of historical or journalistic science.

    The main evaluation of the essay is considered to be the author's transmission of his thoughts, feelings and even often experiences.  In a term paper, this fact is completely overridden by scientific statements, summarizing, and consideration of this or that topic.

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