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I’ve just been penalised for failing to add an ‘s’ on difference but my sentence reads, ‘this helps the reader to understand the need for difference.’ The context being difference is humans. Was I incorrect in my spelling here?

It might be clearer if you had written, "this helps the reader to understand the need for the difference." It is difficult to know the reason for the correction without more context. Does the context indicate more clearly you are writing about one difference?

Thank you for your response. Yes, it is clearly about one difference.

I believe the correct wording would be "differences". Unfortunately other than the way it sounds I can't state why. But I agree that if it had been one difference that the word "the" before it would have made more sense then, stressing that it was one "difference" in that scenario.

Depends on whether it was one difference or many. In case of one difference, you could use 'the difference'. Whereas if there were many, you could say 'differences'.

I think your sentence is correct, and whoever penalised you was too harsh.

It should say either "the difference " or "differences."

If you're using 'difference' as a concept, it shouldn't have an 's', but it's true that it sounds odd.

Depending on the sentence you are constructing..The two can be used at different occasions for example;

We cannot get along easily just because of our differences.

We have much difference in our thinking.