Although research paper assignments may vary widely, there are essentially two basic types of research papers. These are argumentative and analytical.
Considering this, what is purpose of the paper?
The purpose of your paper is the reason you are writing your paper (convince, inform, instruct, analyze, review, etc). The audience of your paper are those who will read what you write.
Similarly one may ask, what is research paper and its importance? Research papers are an excellent platform to disseminate a novel finding to a general or focused audience, which may be interested in replicating the experiments; identifying novel applications for the finding, etc., as well as to popularize your research to the world and prevent duplication of the study.