几乎每位考研的同学都经历过一个阶段——写毕业论文。那么毕业论文用英语应该怎么说？article? paper? 还是essay? report?
下面就为大家做一个详细的总结：
1. composition: a piece of written work that children write at school. could be just 50–100 words, often used for school work（多指学校里老师给学生的作文练习，长度较短）。Eg. Little Martha did her first composition in school today. It was called 'My family’. 小玛莎今天在学校完成了她的第一篇作文。题目是“我的家”。2. essay: a short piece of writing on one particular subject written by a student. longer than a composition, more serious, hundreds or thousands of words （学生就某门课程、某个题目所写的论说文，短文。包括考研英语大作文的题目也是要求写一篇essay。广义上来讲，指任何一种非小说性的，篇幅不长、结构简练的文章，如论说文、报道、评论、讽刺性杂文等。）Eg. The teacher gave us the title of this week’s essay today. We have to write 1,000 words on the topic of 'If I ruled the world’ and hand it in next Monday. 今天老师给了我们本周作文的题目。我们必须以“如果我统治了世界”为主题写1000字，并在下周一交。3. assignment: a task or piece of work that you are given to do, especially as part of your studies. a long essay, often part of a course, usually thousands of words （布置的作业、任务。比essay更长，通常有几千字）Eg. At the end of this course, you have to do a 5,000-word assignment which will be assessed, and the grade will contribute to your final grade. 在本课程结束时，你需要完成一个 5,000 字的作业并被评估，成绩将计入你的期末成绩。4. dissertation: a long formal piece of writing on a particular subject, especially for a university degree. a long, research-based work, perhaps 10–15,000 words, for a degree or diploma. （书面语用词，指独立研究后所写的较为详细的专题文章，学位论文。）Eg. I think I’ll do a study of people’s personal banking habits for my MSc dissertation. It has to be about 12,000 words. 我想我会在我的硕士论文中研究人们的个人银行习惯。它大概需要 12,000 字。5. thesis: a very long, original, research-based work, perhaps 80–100,000 words, for a higher degree (e.g. PhD) a long piece of writing based on your own ideas and research that you do as part of a university degree, especially a higher degree such as a PhD. （很长，原创，基于研究，阐述学术观点的学位论文，通常指博士毕业论文）
Eg. His PhD thesis was 90,000 words long and was on the history of US place names. 他的博士论文长达 90,000 字，是关于美国地名的历史。
6. paper: a long, formal piece of writing about an academic subject. an academic article about a particular subject that is written by and for specialists （正式用词，多指在学术刊物上发表或在学术会议上宣读的专题论文，也指高等学校的学期论文，或学校里的作文练习。）Eg. He just published a paper in the journal Nature analyzing the fires. 他刚刚在《自然》杂志上发表了一篇分析火灾的论文。7. article: a piece of writing that is published in a newspaper or magazine （多指在报刊、杂志上发表的非文艺性的文章，包括新闻报导、学术论文等。）Eg. According to an article in The Economist the drug could have side effects.《经济学人》杂志上的一篇文章讲到这种药可能有副作用。8. report: an official document which a group of people issue after investigating a situation or event. （在做对某种情况或事件做调查后写出的调查报告，情况汇报）Eg. A report by the Association of University Teachers finds that only 22 per cent of lecturers in our universities are women. 大学教师联合会发表的报告发现只有22%的大学讲师为女性。对这8个词有了深入了解后，在真题中读到它，就再也不是囫囵式地一带而过，而是能做到还未看到后文内容，就已经对接下来是一篇什么样的文章有了大致判断。在日常写作练习中，也可以将其使用的更加准确、恰当。对于即将出国留学的同学们来说，也能更清楚的了解作业要求，拿到好的分数。
