Throughout your academic journey in high school and university, you will be asked to write many different papers on a variety of different topics. There are very few students who are able to get through their entire academic life without taking any kind of help from a tutor or their peers and professors. Most students are hard-pressed to tell the simple differences between a dissertation and an essay! So for the purpose of giving you an important understanding of the exact difference between a dissertation and an essay, read our blog post on the subject below.
So what is the purpose?
The purpose of writing an essay is to inform the reader of the essay about a particular topic. It may also hold the purpose of creatively describing the topic in a way that is nice to listen to. An essay writer is assigned with the responsibility of offering their opinions on a particular topic and then providing some supporting arguments for what they claim. There are 4 distinct types of categories of an essay that every student should be aware of. The following are the categories of essays:
- Persuasive
It is a type of essay which tries to convince the reader by using points backed by scientific logic and reason.
- Expository
It is a form of writing in which the reader focuses on describing the topic at hand in a particular way that the topic becomes clear for the readers to understand.
- Descriptive
This form of writing has a central focus on describing a particular thing. The writer of a descriptive essay is encouraged to use their creative thinking to the fullest potential so that the description is the most suitable.
- Narrative
The main focus of a narrative essay is to tell a story from a particular point of view. Just like descriptive essays, a writer is encouraged to tap into their creative capabilities in order to best describe the setting of the story to their readers.
However, the key purpose of dissertation writing is to add new information to a topic or a field of study. It requires the writer of the dissertation to be engaged in constant research that will ensure that the topic is completely covered in writing. Dissertation writers are also encouraged to apply all of the many research methodologies that they have learned throughout their academic lives, as this will make their writing more expansive and reliable.
Dissertations are often written with the purpose of being published in academic journals and scholarly reports so that new ideas are within reach of researchers who think a topic is relevant.
Who is the audience?
The audience of an essay is mostly quite limited. It is quite rare that an essay is shared with anyone other than the teacher or the professor who has assigned the student to write an essay. But in some rare cases, when the essay is quite good and has very few flaws, your teacher or professor might submit it to be published in a magazine or a newspaper for your fellow students to read.
The audience for a dissertation, however, is much larger in comparison. It mostly consists of a team of academic advisors and your professors who are responsible for the content that you write. These advisors have the job of giving you direction as a researcher and a writer and can influence what you are researching and how you will write about it. This team of advisors will either accept your work when it is finished, or they will encourage you to make changes that will improve your dissertation writing.
But if your writing is accepted, then your dissertation will probably be published in a journal which is relevant to the field of your study. So your audience for a dissertation is extended beyond just the team of your advisors who are in front of you, as many researchers and scholars will look towards your ideas for help in their further research.
What do you need for each type of writing?
The most notable difference between essay and dissertation writing is what you need to get started. An essay does not need a lot to be considered a complete piece of writing. For example, a narrative essay can be considered complete if it contains a purely fictional account by the writer and it will be accepted with ease.
But a dissertation needs so much more to be accepted by your academic advisors. A dissertation requires you to research many articles and read until your eyes become sore and dry. After you have researched older articles which are relevant to your topic, you need to make your own observations using a variety of research methods. Once you have finally collected and organized all of your data, then it is finally time to start writing
As you can see, there are many differences between essay and dissertation writing, but if you find yourself struggling with the latter then you should get in touch with our online dissertation writing services as soon as possible.