At the university level, every student has heard about research papers and dissertations. But there is no doubt that many students still remain confused about the differences. At graduation, post-graduation, and doctorate level, you must submit these. A dissertation is all about personal research. It is also a must for having a degree. You cannot complete your degree without submitting the dissertation. A research paper is not as lengthy as the dissertation. But it is a short version of it instead. According to a PhD dissertation writing service, in the research paper, you have to mention practical implementations. It includes findings of the dissertation. Research papers and dissertations both come under the category of academic writing. Even the components of writing a scholarly paper and dissertation are similar.
Components of Research Paper and Dissertation:
You have to go with the following parts for both;
- Introduction
- Literature review
- Research method
- Data analysis
- Interpretation
- Findings
- Results
- Discussions
- Conclusions
Research paper and dissertation have the same components. But they also differ in some areas. The main purpose of writing is different for both. Also, writing style and some specific components are different in both. Research paper and dissertation both differ a lot from daily, or weekly assignments at the university. Many students don’t understand the differences and take both of them as identical. This is a big blunder. The worst thing is when the student is not clear about the difference. He starts writing a dissertation, but ends up with a research paper.
Same as some situations, where students start a research paper but end up with a dissertation. In such cases, first of all, the student has to face failure of grades. He/she also has to do all the work again in the right direction. So if you want to avoid these unpleasant situations, you should know the differences between both. Let’s discuss some differences between the research paper and dissertation. These are highlighted as follows;
Differences:
Purpose
The writing purpose of research paper and dissertation vary from each other. The purpose of writing a dissertation is completion of the degree. Without dissertation submission, you cannot get your degree. At the same time, the purpose of research paper is to expand the track of knowledge. It includes findings of the study. The sign of a good scholarly paper is that readers should find something new through it. In the dissertation, students design a problem statement. Then they collect data and analyse it to find a solution for the problem statement. Universities demand dissertations for developing research skills within the students. Whereas a research paper requires facts and proves to support the arguments. By this, you have to drive a link between your study and the work of other writers. And finally, you have to mention practical implementations of the study.
Time and Style
A dissertation is lengthy as compared to the research paper. At the same time, the length of the research paper is less than that of a dissertation. The research paper is a summary of the dissertation. In simple words, scholarly paper is a core part of the dissertation. No doubt both research paper and dissertation have the same components, but their lengths still vary. For the dissertation, students collect data, and after collection, they analyse it. The collection of data is not an easy task. Most of the time, you have to go out and spend many days for data collection. Without the collection of data, you cannot analyse it. So you have to spend time on the collection, and then on writing the dissertation. Resultantly, dissertation takes more time. As length of the dissertation is more, it requires more time for its completion. If we compare the completion time for dissertations and research papers, the latter requires way less time.
Supervision
For dissertation, you have an advisor at the university. At graduation level, you may have a group under the supervision of a teacher. At the post-graduation level, you have to work on your dissertation individually. Still, you have an advisor that supervises you till completion of the dissertation. Wherever you find any problem, you may ask your advisor for help. He provides you guidance, and then you have to work accordingly.
But universities do not assign any advisor for you in the research paper. If you have good terms with the teacher, you may ask him for guidance. Yet it is not his duty to supervise you. You have to work on your own. If you do not find any teacher for your help, you can go for many online sources. Many websites on the internet help you in handling the problems related to your research paper. You can get benefits from the available services like dissertation proofreading as well.
Publication
The publication of a dissertation is termed as book publication. Its publication makes you the author of the book. In short, a research paper works as an article that sheds light on the core purpose. It is not taken as a comprehensive discussion.
Results
The main aim must be achieved in the results of both research paper and dissertation. In a dissertation, your result must encounter aim of the study. Before writing the dissertation, you must have an aim that directs you in one direction. The achievement of that aim shows that you have done a righteous job. In a scholarly paper, you take a real-life problem and find a practical solution for that. When you complete writing part of the dissertation, you have to deal with the viva and presentation as a defence for the dissertation.
You have to answer and justify whatever the board of examination asks of you. After that, results are based on the quality of material as well as your justification of the findings. A research paper is completed after two things. When the research paper is checked for plagiarism, and the quality of material is ensured, it is taken as a completed form.