Thank you for your interest in YYD.
Comparison of the seven types of essays and their writing focuses
Shi Lijuan
There are different ways to classify papers, and understanding the different types of papers can be important to improve your essay writing skills and choose a paper that is more suitable for your type. British scholars Gordon Ruger and Marianne Peter present seven different types of essays and what they should focus more on in Academic Advice for Graduate Students. We will introduce them one by one below.
1. Data-oriented papers
This is the type of essay that most people think of the most. Data-oriented papers focus on describing and discussing data (rather than describing and discussing the methods used to collect data). Representatives of such papers include papers that report the results of the survey and papers that report formal trials.
If the center of the paper is data, then good data is needed. This means that the data is reliable and interesting. "Reliable" means that the size, quality, and representativeness of the sample should meet an unquestionable standard. Novices (and sometimes not just novices) among researchers often worry about whether the sample size is up to the target and whether there are enough respondents. Another concern they had was the representativeness of the sample. Representativeness is something they like to think about, because anyone, with a little common sense, can easily come up with all sorts of reasons to question whether a sample is sufficiently representative. However, once the questionnaire is sent out (which is the usual method of collecting large amounts of data of questionable credibility), these concerns give way to the principle of how to make it easier. Therefore, these problems that affect "reliability" should be eliminated at the outset.
People who are just starting out in research tend to overlook the importance of getting "interesting" data. The reason why newbies don't pay attention to this may be that they often don't think about what the collected data will look like until they receive their responses to the questionnaire. Since the data collected was not new, the conclusions of their research were understandably boring, so they quickly faded from the public eye.
Fascinating research results are often surprising and useful at the same time. This result should be backed by a well-grounded sample, and the sample data must be credible enough to be used as a basis for further research. A classic, data-based research paper can bring reputation to its author. However, most data-based research papers fail to break new ground. It is essential to have reliable and interesting data to build a reputation in academia for this type of data-driven paper.
2. Teaching guidance papers
A teaching instructional essay is one that describes a research method and explains how to use it. This type of paper is valuable, but academic journals often do not publish such papers, because original research is the spirit of academic journals, and teaching instructional papers usually do not involve original research. But if you publish a classic teaching instructional paper that discusses a certain research methodology, it will be cited for years to come.
3. Method-oriented papers
This type of paper also describes a research methodology, but the purpose is to point out that this research method should be more widely applied. The method described may be original (e.g., invented by the author himself) or a research method that has been developed in another field but has not yet received sufficient attention in the field in which the author intends to promote it.
This type of essay will overlap with the instructional essay, but the method-oriented essay does not have to be written in the form of a instructional essay. It is common practice to discuss why a certain method can be applied to the researcher's own field in the paper, but not to describe the method in detail, but to list the teaching guide paper or textbook that discusses the method for the reader to consult.
One of the advantages of a method-oriented paper is that it is easy to write a method-oriented paper if you are already familiar with the research methods in some other field. All that is needed in writing is a few convincing cases that demonstrate that applying the method to your field can solve problems that are difficult to solve with traditional research methods. The number of samples required doesn't have to be too large, as a small sample (even a convincing example) can be just as effective in proving your point.
4. Consciousness arousal essays
This kind of paper is not as subtle as it sounds. Its purpose is to raise awareness of certain issues that have not yet received sufficient attention in the field of research. These questions often involve the application of methods and concepts from other fields to the researcher's field.
Consciousness-awakening essays, if successfully written, can attract a lot of attention and change the perspective of the entire field; If it is poorly written, it will only give the author a bad reputation of arrogance and bombastic talk. We can use the usual litmus test in academic research to determine the merits of this type of paper, that is, whether it brings new and interesting tools to the reader. For example, if a paper tells us that hard science research methods cannot be directly applied to the study of soft science, we may think that this is true, but we do not get anything really meaningful from this conclusion. But if a paper tells us that game theory can provide a mathematical basis for evolutionary ecology, the implications for the reader are like giving a child a key to a toy storehouse. Able to provide research directions for others.
5. Theoretical papers
Theoretical papers have a high level of prestige. These papers deal with theoretical issues, such as the inherent limitations of symbolic reasoning. It can have a huge impact. Published theoretical papers are usually written by authorities in a certain field (in this case, real theoretical papers, not simply papers that use a theory as a framework or perspective), and an important part of them is literature review and methodology (it is impossible to solve difficult theoretical problems without the introduction of literature and methodology). Those papers that cannot be published are usually written by inexperienced novices. They don't read enough literature before writing it, it's like not reading the relevant FAQ before learning something new. Our advice is not to try to write a theoretical essay until you can't confirm that you're up to the task, or if you can't come up with evidence to prove your ability. But we should all work towards that goal.
6. Critical essays
Every decade or so, someone in a field decides that it's time to write a paper examining the important progress that has been made in the field since the last critical paper was published. These individuals review all major papers published in the past period of time, as well as many other minor papers. The task is enormous and involves reading and evaluating hundreds of papers and books, identifying a number of important topics and summarizing them in the paper.
A critical essay is valuable to the general reader because it is complete in information, including an overview and key material texts, providing readers with a quick access to the research system in a certain field.
The authors of critical essays are usually people who know a certain field inside out, who have read all the relevant literature (and probably have written quite a few of them themselves). However, there are exceptions, and this exception can be used to your advantage: if the literature review section of your doctoral dissertation is well written, then this section can rightfully be published as a review paper. The reality is that most students who are writing their doctoral dissertations are either tired of the errand of literature review or are afraid of being told to ignore critical literature, so they have little interest in writing critical papers.
7. Conceptual presentation papers
The concept presentation paper overlaps with many other types of papers, especially method-oriented papers. Conceptual presentations are designed to show the reader that a particular concept (usually a methodology, but there are exceptions – for example, it can also be a conceptual framework) that is feasible, useful, and interesting. This type of paper is useful when applying for research grants.
If you know exactly what you're trying to argue and how to do it, you only need a set of data from one sample to complete a proof-of-concept paper. The hardest part of writing this kind of paper is to find a good concept.
brief summary
The above types of papers usually use some research methods, such as formal experiments, field experiments, case studies, action research, and survey research, all of which have their own emphases and difficulties in writing, and we can choose accordingly according to our own conditions and needs.
(This article was first published on the website of the Institute of Research Writing, June 20, 2024)