Anyone who works for essay writing services these days perfected their writing skills while they were in college. As a student, you are assigned essays and assignments as part of your academic progression. Passing them and doing extremely well helps a student become a writer who can present their ideas clearly without fluffing.
However, once thrown into the real world, a student has to be able to know the difference between essay writing and travel writing if that’s the field they work in. This article will address the difference and similarities of essay writing and travel writing.
Getting the reader’s attention
When it comes to getting a reader’s attention, both travel and essay writing need to do that from the get-go. The introduction is very important because it is what convinces a reader they need to carry on reading the content because it’s got substance. While this might sound the same, the execution is very different.
For instance, in travel writing, the writer looks to tap into the emotion of the reader by throwing in a tease of what the conclusion of their piece is. Essay writing, on the other hand, is at its best when it challenges the reader’s knowledge on the topic. It educates the reader with stats as well as facts.
The purpose of each writing style
When it comes to purpose, both want to convey information to readers clearly without making them feel lost and that is the only thing they have in common. Essays are known to present arguments through evidence while travel writing is more about taking readers on a journey, telling them a story. Information needs to be used wisely to fit the writer’s narrative while essays will dissect facts and present them to readers.
How evidence is used
Evidence can be seen as something that each piece brings to the table to back their ideas or facts. As pointed out above, both writing styles need facts in them to grab the reader’s attention and make them understand what exactly they are looking at. However, the facts and information each writing style needs are different from the other. This is because they are two different sets of disciplines.
For an essay’s arguments to hold water, they are backed up by sources from journals, books, and even articles that have been published. Travel writing while it does rely on a few secondary sources of data, the majority of it is from primary sources.
This adds authenticity to the content making it stand out because it is telling a story. Travel writing can be fictional too which is different from essays where one can’t make things up that aren’t true. Providing readers with false information is very bad for any writer. Writers who specialize in travel are always on the lookout for interesting stories.
Crediting sources
Crediting sources in essay writing requires more effort than in travel writing. This is because the audience of both is different. Essays are for audiences who are still in school while travel writing is more for casual readers. Every piece of information that is put in an essay needs to be carefully referenced according to the college requirement.
This makes it easy for information to be tracked and verified by the reader. Some colleges will want their students to use Harvard referencing style while others will want MLA. In travel, writing sources are cited but not to the same level as essays.
There is a bit of freedom and a journalistic approach to this style of writing which focuses a lot on interviews with many of the quotes coming from average people rather than things that were published. Formatting of the content
Work that hasn’t been formatted properly will look messy and disorganized. Information can be lost in translation and points can come across wrong if one does not format their work accordingly.
In colleges, it is very wrong that essays have a very strict format that a student must follow religiously as per guidelines given to them by their tutor. There needs to be an introduction, main body and conclusion with proper grammar without any use of slang words.
If a student does not follow this format when writing their essay, the chances of getting a low mark or even failing the essay are very high. If the format is unclear, it is wise for a student to ask their tutor for help because they will be able to point them in the right direction. Travel writing, on the other hand, is more flexible when it comes to the structure plus it is more informal.
For example, when writing essays, students are not supposed to use the first person while in travel writing, the first person can be used if one is talking about their personal experiences. Adding personal experience adds a bit more authenticity to the work because the reader will know that one is talking about something they have experienced and isn’t secondary data.
All in all, based on the points above it is clear to see that both writing styles have their fair share of similarities and differences to get their points across to readers. What sets them apart from each other is the approach, the structure and most importantly, the tone. These writing styles are two completely different skills and if you are a student who wants to go far in their writing career, knowing the differences is very important.
