4 Strong Differences between Blog Writing and Research Writing

Yesterday, I was talking to an old friend who recently changed her expertise to blog writing. She is an expert on her subject and a good writer, but while talking to her, I came to know that she is facing a challenging situation in her new job. The methods and tricks she learned for research writing are not working in her present field of blog writing. As a result, her writing is going through repetitive reworks.
And the whole process is affecting her confidence to a great length.

I have been working in the content industry for the last seven years and have explored different paths of Research-based writing and blog writing. So, I understood her situation quite well and suggested four ways to transform her writing into business-oriented blog writing.

Here, I am sharing the same suggestions with my larger audience, hoping that someone struggling with the similar issue will find a solution after reading this.

What is Blog Writing?

Blog writing is a form of writing that businesses use to enjoy long-term benefits like customer engagement and brand building through words. Individual blogger also uses their blog pages to connect to their audience by sharing their thoughts and ideas. Blogging uses SEO-infused keywords that push the website to a higher search engine ranking.

Please read my previous article to have a better idea about blog writing.

The Differences between Blog Writing and Research Writing

The blog writing and research writing follows two separate rule-sets of writing paths. Following are the four major differences between these two types of writing:

1. The Purpose

Understanding the purpose of any action solves most of the other related issues; it is the same here. The purpose of blog writing is entirely different from that of Research writing. The main purpose of blog writing is to make the audience more connected to and knowledgeable about the brands. It is a bridge between the brands and readers that gives the latter the needed information about the brand, including its values, and virtues.

On the other hand, the primary purpose of research writing is to persuade the reader to understand specific theories with analysis and/or facts, depending on the subject. Research writing makes a connection between the theory and its practical application and informs readers about the different stated facts, often in summary paragraphs.

✓ Blog writing aims to connect, whereas research writing aims to inform.

2. The Audience

From the above-stated purpose, it is clear that the consumers or the aspiring consumers are the biggest audiences of blog writing. The audience came to the blog sites to experience the brand’s essence in its textual form. Even the audience of the individual bloggers wants to connect with them by reading their blog posts that reflect their experiences, thoughts, beliefs, and sentiment.

The main audiences of research writing are the evaluators who decide whether a paper meets the needed standards or not. For the journals and research papers, the fellow and future researchers are also the paper’s audience, as they use the article for future references.

✓ The audience of blog writing is those who want to connect, whereas the audience of research writing wants to evaluate.

3. The Style

Storytelling is the most effective style of blog writing as it makes a quick connection with the readers, which is also the tested way for engaging blog writing. For creating a lasting brand impression, writers need more than just information. It’s about evoking emotions and connecting with readers on a deeper level. That’s why writing in a storytelling way, confessional way, investigative way, or influential work is much better to keep the readers engaged with the posts.

The research writing style is much more formal than blog writing. The most notable style of research writing is to ensure that the entire content is related to the thesis statement and that the different theories converge to the same decision. Unlike blog writers, the research writers used the third person and, most importantly, the passive voice in their writing.

✓ A successful blog narrates the events of the brand in an informal way, like telling a story. In contrast, an excellent research paper analyses the theory and formally summarizes the facts with a third-person perspective and passive voice.

4. The Structure

The structure of blog writing is based on the SEO techniques that are used throughout the blog posts. To apply the proper SEO rules, the blog writing has been structured into title, headers (like H1, H2, H3), and paragraphs. Using the keywords properly throughout the content by maintaining the keyword density is another factor of an ideal blog structure.

Research writing follows some specific structures as well. First, research essays follow the three-part essay structure, which includes an introduction, body, and conclusion. As per the rule, the length of both introduction and conclusion should be smaller than that of the body, the central part for analysis. Research writing also depends on the reference used in it. For example, the APA citation asked for a different cover page, whereas the MLA citation does not.

✓ The structure of blog writing depends on SEO, whereas the structure of research writing depoends of the reference style.

The Similarity of Blog Writing and Research Writing

These two different approaches to writing also have some common points. Among them, I curated the two most important points here.

No plagiarism

Plagiarism is a strictly no-no for any type of writing, including research and blog writing. In its crudest sense, plagiarism means copy-pasting the content without acknowledging the source, and it is the most avoidable part of writing, irrespective of its type.

Engaging content

The content should be engaging in both forms of writing. The readers should not drop the article in the middle, and the main challenge of the writers is to grab the readers’ attention throughout the article.

Hope you will find the post helpful, mainly if you plan to start your career in any of these writing fields. Please feel free to share your thoughts on this.