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Writing Term Papers: A Research Paper with a Few Conditions
Writing term papers is a common task which can be paralleled to research papers. The main difference between research papers and term papers can be seen in that the latter are usually written over the course of a semester, covering materials taught during that period and accordingly, accounting for a larger amount of grades.
On the other hand, writing term papers should not be more difficult than writing research papers. Nevertheless, it can be stated that there are some differences between the processes of writing term papers and writing research papers. Thus, this article will attempt to outline the main differences between writing term papers and research papers.
Academic Research
Writing a term paper, the emphasis put on academic research should be acknowledged. Academic research implies consulting scholarly resources to provide a synthesis of information to present an understanding of the topic in question.
In research papers, academic research usually has the purpose of indicating the accomplishments of previous researches as well as the gaps their contributions might have. In that regard, writing term papers will not necessarily involve academic research, with the consulted resources mainly focusing on supporting particular arguments provided by the author.
Structure
Another apparent feature of writing term papers can be seen through the structure it uses. Certainly, the differences in structure are concerned with the most common forms of term papers and research papers. Following a common structure, when writing term papers, implies using elements common to essays, such as introduction, body, and conclusion.
The variations in the headings when writing term papers are largely individual and dependent on the topic and the subject. Research papers, on the other hand, have more fixed structure, which comprises of such elements as problem statement, literature review, methodology, etc.