Essays:
Essays are usually short and written on a particular subject; they primarily present the thoughts or opinion of the writer. Essays are assigned to the students in the initial learning phase or for the introduction of a topic. An essay usually comprises research from the author's perspective. Generally an essay includes introduction of the topic, body and conclusion. The introduction of the essay author simply states the purpose of the essay and also mentions the thesis statement that is basically a sentence that summarizes the purpose of writing the essay. The body is the main part of any essay which comprises three to five paragraphs.
These paragraphs contain the research material, background information, arguments and discussion. The last part of the essay is a conclusion which summarizes the whole topic discussed in the essay. Mostly essays include arguments based on literature work for supporting author thoughts. It may also include short bibliography, citation usually at the end of the essay for referring to the quoted work. Typically the length of an essay is one page to five pages in length. There are normally five or maximum seven paragraphs. An essay can be written to tell a story or for the description of an event or for presenting factual information or presenting your opinion on a certain topic for persuading readers to agree with it.
Thesis:
A thesis is long as compared to an essay and consists of more parts than essay. Thesis writing is assigned mostly at graduate and doctoral level. The thesis has five main chapters.
Chapter One: Introduction:
This chapter introduces the topic and establishes the thesis statement and research question for describing the main purpose of the thesis. In this part the writer justifies what was the necessity for writing in this topic and what research question will be studied through this paper. A thesis topic is not as simple as the topic of an essay it is based on a particular problem.
Chapter Two: Literature Review:
This chapter provides the reader information about the relevant work and research already conducted on this topic or problem statement. It also identifies what gaps are left in previously conducted research which the writer is going to cover through his research.
Chapter Three: Research Methods:
This chapter describes what research methods or techniques the writer has used for conducting research. It can be qualitative or quantitative. It also tells about the setting where the research was conducted, who were the participants, what were the instructional or intervention materials used, what were the instruments for measurement, which procedures were followed, and how the observed data was analysed.
Thesis:
A thesis is long as compared to an essay and consists of more parts than essay. Thesis writing is assigned mostly at graduate and doctoral level. The thesis has five main chapters.
Chapter One: Introduction:
This chapter introduces the topic and establishes the thesis statement and research question for describing the main purpose of the thesis. In this part the writer justifies what was the necessity for writing in this topic and what research question will be studied through this paper. A thesis topic is not as simple as the topic of an essay it is based on a particular problem.
Chapter Two: Literature Review:
This chapter provides the reader information about the relevant work and research already conducted on this topic or problem statement. It also identifies what gaps are left in previously conducted research which the writer is going to cover through his research.
Chapter Three: Research Methods:
This chapter describes what research methods or techniques the writer has used for conducting research. It can be qualitative or quantitative. It also tells about the setting where the research was conducted, who were the participants, what were the instructional or intervention materials used, what were the instruments for measurement, which procedures were followed, and how the observed data was analysed.
Chapter Four: Results:
This is the most important part of the thesis, as it tells about the findings of a researcher. The reliability of this section depends on chapter three.
Chapter Five: Discussion and Interpretation:
This is the last chapter which is based on the interpretation of results and discussion about the findings of the result. The results of the research are interpreted and critically viewed and the writer presents his opinions.
In the thesis the tables and figures are presented in separate sections. There is also a separate section for bibliography, citation and references. In a thesis an abstract is also provided before introduction which provides the summary of the thesis. Length of a thesis varies from university to university and even from one department to another. But typically an undergraduate thesis is forty to sixty pages and an average graduate thesis is 60 to 100 words.