The flux of solar type III radio bursts have a time profile of rising and decay phases at a given frequency, which has been actively studied since the 1970s. Several factors that may influence the duration of a type III radio burst have been proposed. In this work, to study the dominant cause of the duration, we investigate the source positions of the front edge, the peak, and the tail edge in the dynamic spectrum of a single and clear type III radio burst. The duration of this type III burst at a given frequency is about 3 s for decameter wave. The beam-formed observations by the LOw-Frequency ARray are used, which can provide the radio source positions and the dynamic spectra at the same time. We find that, for this burst, the source positions of the front edge, the peak, and the tail edge split with each other spatially. The radial speed of the electrons exciting the front edge, the peak, and the tail edge is 0.42c, 0.25c, and 0.16c, respectively. We estimate the influences of the corona density fluctuation and the electron velocity dispersion on the duration, and the scattering effect by comparison with a few short-duration bursts from the same region. The analysis yields that, in the frequency range of 30–41 MHz, the electron velocity dispersion is the dominant factor that determines the time duration of type III radio bursts with long duration, while scattering may play an important role in the duration of short bursts
