Research paper writing is a skill that must be developed through careful efforts. It is not the same task as creative writing, journaling, or even essay writing. Research papers are typically your extrapolations of what is reality from the facts and opinions of credible sources. The two main forms of the research paper are argumentative and analytical. You will want to be familiar with these differences when you write a research paper so that you can carefully craft your research paper to meet your goals for it.

The Argumentative Research Paper

The argumentative research paper, or persuasive research paper, is one that presents ideas you have thought about in a deep manner and uses them to form a thesis. This thesis is used to form your argument as the writer for consideration by readers of your research paper. With an argumentative research paper, you take a clear side in the topic based on the evidence you present in favor of your argument. Such evidence will include statements by credible sources and facts as presented from credible sources. You can also use reasoning to infer things from those sources that may not be stated by a credible source. Your goal in this paper is to convert the reader to your way of thinking.

The Analytical Research Paper

The analytical research paper is one that results from the gathering of data from credible sources and then a combined paraphrase of this data by the writer. As you write this type of paper, you will try to make the knowledge presented in your research available to the reader as it relates to the topic of your paper, without presenting a general bias in one direction. You will evaluate critically every idea arrived at and give opinions based solely on the information available as much as possible without any external biases popping into your writing. You are more interested in providing important facts than placing judgemental valuations.

Research Paper Comparison

Both types of research paper require you to do research of credible sources. They also require you to use your critical thinking skills to evaluate that information. Then your creativity is required to come up with ideas on how to present that information.

The main difference between the two types of writing is that the argumentative research paper is an attempt to convince your readers of the validity of a certain view you hold of a subject, while the analytical research paper is an attempt to use your research to give an objective snapshot of what is known about the subject.

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