Difference Between a Term Paper and a Research Paper

Term papers and research papers are most of the times thought of as a same entity. People who do not understand how these two types of papers are written never find any differences in them which is quite unfortunate. Many students are also found to be under the same kind of impression regarding term and research papers. Great responsibility lies on the shoulders of student advisors, instructors and professors to clear this misconception. If you carefully go through the rules and pattern followed by the term and the research paper individually, you would come to know about their basic differences. Moreover, difference doesn’t only lie in the format and appearance of the papers but in regard to the content present in the document.

The basic difference between these two sorts of papers that majority of the student community seems to know is that a term paper is written on a junior level. You would need to write term papers several times during your college life for the completion of certain courses in order to get finished with your graduation. But when it comes to a research paper, mostly it is required to submit a research paper if you are pursuing to get a master’s degree in any specific field.

While writing a term paper, your instructor would ask you to use the information and theoretical knowledge that you have received during that particular course lectures, class discussions and group assignments. Mostly you won’t have to take help from other types of sources outside your class room for writing a research paper. Basically a term paper is specifically designed to examine the knowledge that a student has gained during a particular course so that it is ensured that the student would be able to grasp the advanced level courses related to such a course in the up coming semesters.

Talking about a research paper, a student is advised and expected to generate some thing that is entirely is own. The topic on which a research paper is asked to be written mostly is a combination of all the courses that an individual has gone through during his college days. He has to utilize the knowledge and information of all the courses and connect them to produce some thing new. For the matter of research, any and every type of sources can be put to use. Such as library documents, reports, articles, magazines, newspapers, internet, books, etc.

A research paper takes a lot more time to create than writing a term paper. Moreover, it provides an in depth knowledge about the subject along with writer’s own analysis and evaluations. However, term paper is nothing like a research paper in the strict sense. It only connects the information that’s already out there to a presentable form.

There are many different types of research papers available these days. Along with their different types, different formats of a research paper are nowadays commonly in use. But the rules for writing a term paper are not as strict as for the research paper. Research papers are mostly produced by the students that are pursuing a master’s degree in any specific field. One the other hand, term papers are required for the college students to attain their bachelor’s degree.

It is the demand of the education and the degree that the students are going to achieve that they understand the basic differences between these two different kinds of papers before it gets too late!

Author Bio: Flash Term Papers provides custom term paper and research paper writing services.

Category: Education
Keywords: term papers, essays, research papers, thesis, dissertation, book report

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