For Charcoal & Drawings 

Sketch paper is often lighter weight, while drawing paper is conversely a bit heavier in weight. With drawing papers typically being heavier, the artist is able to work on the sheet longer and refine work. The paper can usually stand up to more erasing and more fine detail work.

Sketch paper is typically less expensive, giving you lots of sheets to practice with in your pad. Drawing paper typically will be a bit more expensive than Sketch paper and will usually contain fewer sheets in a pad.

Both sketch and drawing papers are intended for use with dry media such as graphite, charcoal and conte. However, drawing papers typically have a toothier surface, allowing for enhanced variability of tone. Many artists reserve mediums like pastels and colored pencils for drawing paper versus sketch paper since those are typically intended for finished art and the deeper tooth of a drawing paper allows artists to get more depth of color. The toothier surface of a drawing sheet is better for “grabbing” dry media, which allows an artist to create more intense areas of light and dark than what could be achieved on a sketch surface. An artist will also see different results when using various shading techniques such as cross hatching, using a blending stump, or other methods, so it's best to test out different papers and see what your own individual preferences are.