How many types of research papers do you know about? What do you know about writing a research paper? Have you ever written a research paper of any type? If you are a student of high school, then you need to write a research paper that is way different from a business research paper. Therefore, we have different research papers for different purposes in different formats.
There are several types of research papers. It is very necessary to know that which type of research paper is appropriate for our assignments. All the different research papers have different formats and usages. So before going through the different types of research papers in detail, we need to get to know what a research paper really is.
What is a research paper?
A research paper is our own thoughts and ideas but it includes our research too in it. For some students writing a research paper is very tough and challenging. But is making it really difficult and tough to start over in real? But one thing is true that writing a research paper needs a lot of hard work and effort to do it.
Nowadays being a student is very challenging because you ought to write several research papers of different types. Therefore, getting to know about the different types of research papers is very important for them.
If you are a student and want to get an A+ grade in your school or college then you have to get to know about types of the research paper. Or if you are a businessman and want to have a successful career in the future, then you have to write different types of research papers daily.
Different research papers present different information but in different formats. What you write should correspond with the selected type of research paper, otherwise, the information will be invalid.
What a research paper should not include?
It should not include any quotation only essential information should be added in it. Secondly, the research paper should not be the summary of other’s thoughts and ideas, in fact, it must include your own opinions in your own words. In the research paper, both sides are not be discussed in fact, you have to discuss one side and must bring a lot of facts and data to support it. Therefore, I have brought you some top 10 types of research papers so that you should be able to recognize them before writing the next time. To identify the different formats of them let’s have a glance at some of them, which are as follows.
10 Types of Research Papers
1. Analytical
2. Argumentative (persuasive)
3. Definition
4. Compare and contrast
5. Cause and effect
6. Report
7. Interpretative
8. Experimental
9. Survey
10. Problem-solution
1. Analytical
In this type of research paper, we collect relevant information about the topic from different researchers in order to study their different points of view about our topic. This is the first type of research paper that is only used and written by experts and it isn’t an academic type of it. You study other researchers and then write your personal points of view about the topic by analyzing the review of others. In this type of research paper, try to be neutral which means that you don’t support one side the most. In fact, support both sides equally. This is how an analytical research paper should be like.
2. Argumentative (persuasive)
The argumentative research paper should be written in a way that your goal should be supporting one side of the topic. It is really the opposite of analytical research paper because in this type you can share and support your own personal points of view. You ought to find the reviews of other researchers too and then support the researcher, whose points of view are similar to yours. Try to support your argument with different facts and data.
3. Definition
The definition research paper is known as self – explanatory because in this type of research paper, you don’t need to support one side and neither to stay neutral. The only goal is to provide information about the topic given without analyzing and studying the reviews of different researchers at all. You can include different data from different sources even without studying them thoroughly.
4. Compare and contrast
Compare and contrast research papers are used to compare two different writers or researchers who have different points of view. For instance, two businessmen are compared to where their work is analyzed. The most important thing is that you have to describe both side’s arguments in your research paper, but don’t forget to compare and contrast both sides and at the end support one side.
5. Cause and effect
Cause and effect research papers are mostly the very first kind of research paper that high school students and businessmen confront the most. They have to answer questions like “why?” and “what?” in their research papers, which is known as the cause and effect research paper. In business and education field, this sort of research paper is used the most because it is the easiest type of research paper to write.
6. Report
Reports have similarly the business format and they are mostly written to analyze a case or situation. In this sort of research paper, you have to get to the point immediately without wasting any time. But in other research papers, it is somewhat opposite. For instance, in comparison research, you have to start it with questions or with conditional sentences like, “if or what if”. In this type of research paper, we have to support our opinions by showing them in graphs and tables. This type of research paper is the easiest because all you have to do is provide information or data about a specific object or event and then address your readers to the main points and facts only.
7. Interpretative
Interpretative research papers are mostly written by students in order to share their knowledge and opinions which they have gained by studying a particular case or field. For instance, a student of literature is asked to write a research paper on the poem he/she has read, then they have to write this sort of research paper. Or a business case in any study course. The most important thing in this type of research paper is that the facts, the student has written based on it and has supported the data, should be valid.
8. Experimental
An experimental research paper is written for the purpose of describing an experiment in detail. Mostly, it is done in the fields of biology, chemistry, and physics. You have to mention the experiment with supporting information and data. In this type of research paper, you have to share your experience while doing the experiment and whatever you did.
9. Survey
This sort of research paper is mostly used for advertising, public health, business, marketing, and sociology. It is clear by its name that people are asked questions or are surveyed about a specific topic. Generally, it is the collection of a lot of information, opinions, knowledge, and thoughts of respondents or public, which are collected to be studied and then are written down, and presented as a research paper.
10. Problem-solution
This type of research paper is written to solve different problems and issues that are very challenging. They are written by students and researchers. Mostly, college students are supposed to confront this sort of research paper as their assignments. The researcher should study the data about the problem and then find out some possible solutions which should be effective. It means that it should include data and examples that should be able to prove that the solution is the best for those types of problems.
Writing a research paper has become so easy for everyone that it is one main part of the student’s assignment. So research paper has several types that we discussed each of them in the paragraphs above.
In the education field, business, marketing, and even in social media writing a research paper is the key to their success and development. Even if you are a director of a movie also, you have to hire someone who knows the different types of research papers and knows how to write a one. Therefore, you will be compelled to hire him because of that. But isn’t it better if you can write a research paper by yourself? So, besides these, all writing articles and blogging is on trending nowadays and the majority of people earn a good amount of money with writing articles. So don’t you think that writing an article is also somewhat a research paper?
Consequently, we can say that writing a research paper is very important that’s why besides writing it we should have some information about its type too. What other types do you know about? What is the importance of writing research paper nowadays adn what else have I missed to mention? Please feel free to share your feedback in the comments section below.
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- How to Write a Good Research Paper: 10 Tips That 100% Work
- 12 Easy Steps to Write a Great Research Paper
- 4 Types of Academic Writing Every Student Needs to Learn
- 5 General Qualities of The Best Academic Writing