Regardless of the career you are in, it is essential to have good technical and essay writing skills. However, they are two very different skills so if you are looking to find out the similarities and differences between technical writing and essay writing you have come to the right place.
Technical writing is a difficult skill to accomplish. Anything that’s written in a technical way, whether it is a case study, instruction manual, resume, product description, a case study, or a white paper, needs to be written well, so it’s easy to see why many turn to an essay writing company for professional academic assistance from experts.
On the opposite hand, an essay looks at a topic or an issue and includes writing such as a business proposal, a college paper, or even a research paper. It is clear to see that technical writing does differ from essay writing, but there are certain similarities that are worth knowing before you begin writing.
Below we will outline the similarities and differences between technical writing and essay writing.
Technical Writing Explained
Technical writing is a part of academic writing that looks at any technical aspects in a given field. A technical writer will look at a certain subject or topic and needs to write about it in a particular way. It is a very specific form of writing which requires certain skills and techniques, specialized vocabulary, and language in order to outline information. This means that the writer needs to understand the topic or subject thoroughly for them to be able to write about it.
Common types of technical writing include; assistance guides and user manuals, assembly manuals, scientific and medical papers, reports, reviews, and technical documents as well as guides and books written by technical writers.
Essay Writing Explained
Essay writing is a more common type of writing, and it is usually used to explain a specific subject or topic. The main purpose of an essay is to outline a subject or topic and offer an opinion. The way an essay differs from a story is that an essay usually contains multiple points, so an essay can be seen as a piece of writing related to something the writer believes and why they believe it.
There are lots of different types of essays and common types of essay writing include:
- Description – an essay that looks at describing something.
- Explanation – an essay that focuses on explaining a concept.
- Argumentative – an essay that tries to convince the reader.
- Narrative – an essay that aims to tell a story.
- Persuasive – an essay that tries to persuade the reader.
The Similarities Between Technical Writing And Essay Writing
Although there are similarities between technical writing and essay writing, in general, they are very different when it comes to how they are used and the purpose that they serve. Both technical writing and essay writing are as difficult as each other and require the same level of time and effort. For either, you need to have good skills and knowledge. When it comes to technical writing you need to be able to use the correct grammar and spelling and be aware of any technical jargon that you will add to your essay. For essay writing, you need to be aware of the topic you are writing about and be able to clearly and concisely put your thoughts on paper.
Both technical writing and essay writing are presented in different ways and both of them need to be looked at numerous times. A technical writer needs to look over the document that they have created and pick out any technical errors. An essay writer needs to look over their work to pick up on spelling and grammatical mistakes.
The Differences Between Technical Writing And Essay Writing
Technical and essay writing requires research and organization, but they do differ from each other.
When it comes to technical writing, the writer will be writing about a subject or topic that they are familiar with and have studied in the past and written about before.
With essay writing, a writer is writing about a subject or topic that they are not familiar with and have not studied or written about before.
Here are some other key differences between technical writing and essay writing:
- Essay writing is more personal and subjective whereas technical writing tends to be more objective and factual
- Essay writing is more informal whereas technical writing is formal.
- Essay writing tends to flow freely whereas technical writing is far more organized and structured
- Essay writing tends to be based on opinions whilst technical writing consists of facts and figures
The Kinds Of Adjectives Used
In all kinds of writing, writers use a variety of styles depending on their mood, purpose, or intention. This is a huge difference when it comes to technical and essay writing as with technical writing there are not many adjectives used for the names and numbers that are linked to particular places or objects.
The Title
When you look at the title of any essay, you will be able to tell what type of essay is straight away. An essay usually has a title that tells you whether it is a narrative story or it is fictional whereas a technical essay will have a title that is informative and not as interesting and may even include a word such as ‘guide’ or ‘manual’.
In Conclusion
It becomes clear to see that there are similarities and differences between technical writing and essay writing. Technical writing requires a writer to have a good understanding of the topic in question whilst an essay writer needs to have a wider understanding of the topic. However, both writers need to put the same amount of time and effort when it comes to their essays.
Quite often, technical writing and essay writing become confused as both types of essays require the same format. The difference lies in the purpose of the essays. The aim of an essay is to prove a point of view or theory whilst the aim of technical writing is to provide information that is accurate about a service or a product.
