Extended Essay

[Emmi]

i want to do mine in english i kind of want to get into like social media as i find it really interesting but i need help getting a topic :3

like maybe how people seak validation on Facebook ?

anything will help inspire me !

We cannot come up with a topic for you, that is something you are graded on and to give you a topic would be cheating. It's also lazy on your part. Think of some ideas that fit under the social media category, and once you have come up with some ideas we would be happy to give you advice on your topics

Genetics-Can a perfect child be created?

I still have to come up with an actual title and maybe start my research, but that is what I want to write my EE on.

Bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea. First, what subject is this going to go under? If you are thinking philosophy, this is not a philosophical topic. If you are thinking biology, biology EEs require an experiment to score anything higher than a D. How were you planning on testing it? Think about a subject first, then read all of those guidelines like 9 times, then read them again, then pick a topic that meets all of those guidelines. Sometimes your "dream topic" isn't something you can do under the EE guidelines.

[Noelani Bray]

i want to do mine in english i kind of want to get into like social media as i find it really interesting but i need help getting a topic :3

like maybe how people seak validation on Facebook ?

anything will help inspire me !

We cannot come up with a topic for you, that is something you are graded on and to give you a topic would be cheating. It's also lazy on your part. Think of some ideas that fit under the social media category, and once you have come up with some ideas we would be happy to give you advice on your topics

Genetics-Can a perfect child be created?

I still have to come up with an actual title and maybe start my research, but that is what I want to write my EE on.

Bad idea bad idea bad idea bad idea. First, what subject is this going to go under? If you are thinking philosophy, this is not a philosophical topic. If you are thinking biology, biology EEs require an experiment to score anything higher than a D. How were you planning on testing it? Think about a subject first, then read all of those guidelines like 9 times, then read them again, then pick a topic that meets all of those guidelines. Sometimes your "dream topic" isn't something you can do under the EE guidelines.

Not philosiphy, no, philosophy focuses on personhood, unless i wanted to ask if the child created would be a person...I'm doing biology...i've talked to my mentor already and she didnt say anything about an experiment...Im going to have to talk to her again on tuesday though.

[Emmi]

Not philosiphy, no, philosophy focuses on personhood, unless i wanted to ask if the child created would be a person...I'm doing biology...i've talked to my mentor already and she didnt say anything about an experiment...Im going to have to talk to her again on tuesday though.

If you do a biology EE and do not have an experiment, you will not score better than a D, no matter how well your essay was written otherwise.

There is a sentence in the EE guide for biology that says that you can do an EE without an experiment provided you analyze some other data (like an experiment performed by a university team) in place of your own original data. Ignore that. It's basically false.

I would strongly suggest coming up with a new topic, one that you can do an experiment on.

[twilight]

Thanks for your response. At the moment, I'm actually worried I won't be able to fill up 4000 words. I know it's just a guideline, but I think 3500 is pushing it, although my estimates could be really wrong. But I can't think of a topic for Chemistry at all.

I think your estimates would be way wrong. Just think about ALL the information that go into a group 4 EE. You need to explain the theory, explain your entire methodology, process your data, explain and analyse your data, evaluate your experiment, give a conclusion, plus link whatever you're doing to a practical application.

For physics and chemistry, you can search the database for ISEF projects. My idea was inspired from an ISEF project. Just think of something you're interested in, then search for that keyword. It's quite a lot to comb through the entire database. But then again, if you really have 0 idea, just comb through the database year by year.

For physics, there's also this young physicist tournament, where they give you a problem and you're supposed to come up with experiments to test and solve the problem or something like this. So you can search for a potential problem from the tournament questions.

[Bude]

Thanks for your response. At the moment, I'm actually worried I won't be able to fill up 4000 words. I know it's just a guideline, but I think 3500 is pushing it, although my estimates could be really wrong. But I can't think of a topic for Chemistry at all.

I think your estimates would be way wrong. Just think about ALL the information that go into a group 4 EE. You need to explain the theory, explain your entire methodology, process your data, explain and analyse your data, evaluate your experiment, give a conclusion, plus link whatever you're doing to a practical application.

For physics and chemistry, you can search the database for ISEF projects. My idea was inspired from an ISEF project. Just think of something you're interested in, then search for that keyword. It's quite a lot to comb through the entire database. But then again, if you really have 0 idea, just comb through the database year by year.

For physics, there's also this young physicist tournament, where they give you a problem and you're supposed to come up with experiments to test and solve the problem or something like this. So you can search for a potential problem from the tournament questions.

So, my friend went to Cambridge yesterday for something like an open day. She spoke to an Engineering undergrad there who had done the IB, and they said the EE was really really helpful in them getting a place - I think she said they did their EE on designing a toilet that doesn't splash water back up when you do your business... and basically, the admissions tutor really really liked it, and chose that applicant because of his EE, over people with better grades.

I'd like to apply there for Natural Sciences, and after an EE session today in school, I've decided to do it on hydraulic jumps in sinks (for the time being, not sure if this will change) - it's a rather unusual thing to investigate (is it actually..? Seeing the titles for some other EEs makes me doubt this...). Simply, I want my EE to stand out from any other, for good reasons, just like the toilet one. I don't think there are many people in the world who look at a tap and think "wow that's brilliant" when they turn it on and see a hydraulic jump. I assume most people just don't think about it. After some thinking and considering the facilities and equipment available to me, I don't think I'd find a chemistry EE that enjoyable as I prefer theory over practicals in chemistry. But hydraulic jumps are something I'm genuinely interested in.

Also, slightly off topic - I see you got 45, that's awesome! I'm doing the exact same HLs and I'm found HL Maths really difficult initially, but it's starting to get better now. Do you have any tips on the 3 HLs in general? I'd say chemistry's my best, I do a lot of further reading and studying for it, then physics, but maths is probably my weakest. (Aiming for at least a 6 in maths ultimately though.)

[dante256]

hi, so i thought about an EE in ITGS, and i came up with this research statement

To what extent has the use of social media enhanced bullying and the rate of suicides among teenagers and young adults?
how does that sound?

[moonypatronus]

I'm struggling with my EE topic. I'm doing my essay on English B but I can't decide which novels I should choose - I would love to write about friendship theme in "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" and "Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix" but my supervisor isn't that fond of my idea of choosing Harry Potter. I assume she tries to help me to choose that kind of books which would look good in the eyes of the examiner. I've also thought of doing my EE about Robert Galbraith's "The Cuckoo's Calling" and compare one of its themes to one of Agatha Christie's, John le Carré's or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's detective story. The problem is that even though detective stories fascinate me, I don't have as big passion for them as I do for Potter. Should I "follow my heart" and passion or dance to IBO's tune? Any help?

[bluedino]

hi, so i thought about an EE in ITGS, and i came up with this research statement

To what extent has the use of social media enhanced bullying and the rate of suicides among teenagers and young adults?

how does that sound?

Ok, so I don't really know too much about ITGS, but just from my general perspective, that RQ seems kinda broad? I mean, there's so many different types of social media, and you could just analyse ONE and it still might be too much, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Bullying is also such a wide term.. as is teenagers and young adults - so make sure you specify an age range in your essay at the very least. So just a general opinion: it sounds too broad, so you might need to narrow it down by picking a specific social media system? This kind of topic also sounds like something that might be popular/done quite a lot before.. but as I said, I didn't do ITGS, so take that into account when reading what I've suggested.

I'm struggling with my EE topic. I'm doing my essay on English B but I can't decide which novels I should choose - I would love to write about friendship theme in "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" and "Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix" but my supervisor isn't that fond of my idea of choosing Harry Potter. I assume she tries to help me to choose that kind of books which would look good in the eyes of the examiner. I've also thought of doing my EE about Robert Galbraith's "The Cuckoo's Calling" and compare one of its themes to one of Agatha Christie's, John le Carré's or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's detective story. The problem is that even though detective stories fascinate me, I don't have as big passion for them as I do for Potter. Should I "follow my heart" and passion or dance to IBO's tune? Any help?

Ooh I love HP, so I understand why you might like to write about that or Perks of Being a Wallflower. However, HP is probably quite popular (I imagine?) and done a lot - especially the friendship theme. I think something like that is really too broad to analyse in an entire novel like Perks/HP, so I imagine your supervisor is not be that fond of you doing HP because it's been reallllyyy overdone. At this point, I'd say you should try to stick with what you've got passion for - so either Perks/HP, but try and find something more unique you might be able to write about? Are there any interesting motifs or techniques either author uses throughout? Any minor characters that might be interesting to explore? My opinion is that your detective EE idea sounds much better than exploring friendship in Perks/HP (because something like that is too broad/done before), but if you could find something more unique to explore in Perks/HP then it would probably work well. Hope this helps?

[mhelof]

Hello everyone : )
I'm planning to do my EE in Psychology and the research question I came up with my teacher is Can attraction be explain by biology alone? Generally I want to write about attraction because I have a lot of ideas, so I realize that the question may be a subject to change later as I'll be writing. Anyway, I'm really excited about it as I love psychology.

[Tiger128]

Hi, so we're in the process of selecting our EE Research Question, and I'm honestly kind of lost. I know that I would most likely do one in the realms of Aerospace Science. Lately I've been feeling really down in math (this year has been quite stressful), so I want to stay clear of the physics realm. I'm not sure how to choose a question that would fit in the subject fields. I'm thinking maybe "To what extent is colonization of a planet in our Solar System possible by countries on Earth?" I'm not sure if that one is too "common" or "stereotypical," and I'm not sure what topic that would fall under. Could someone help me out on this one please? Thanks

[Emmi]

Hi, so we're in the process of selecting our EE Research Question, and I'm honestly kind of lost. I know that I would most likely do one in the realms of Aerospace Science. Lately I've been feeling really down in math (this year has been quite stressful), so I want to stay clear of the physics realm. I'm not sure how to choose a question that would fit in the subject fields. I'm thinking maybe "To what extent is colonization of a planet in our Solar System possible by countries on Earth?" I'm not sure if that one is too "common" or "stereotypical," and I'm not sure what topic that would fall under. Could someone help me out on this one please? Thanks

Your question must fit exactly and 100% into one of the subjects listed in the EE guide. You choose a subject first, then come up with some area of that research question that fits into the subject's guidelines, and then narrow it down from there. Coming up with a topic and then trying to fit it into a subject does not work 99% of the time and oftentimes the essay will score poorly regardless of how well it was written simply because it didn't fit into a subject.

Your current topic does not fit into any subject.

The best area for this would be physics, and you can choose your topic to avoid some complex math (limiting it to basic calculus, trigonometry, and algebra; physics EEs don't expect you to reinvent relativity). If you don't want to do physics, you could look at aerospace from some other angle. A historical take on a country's aerospace program could work for history, or you could do a business investigation for an economics or business and management EE.

[eli]

I‘ve been scrolling through this website for about 2 hrs now to get inspiration as I have to decide on an EE topic in a month. I am thinking of doing mine in Geography about Chinas One-Child-Policy, however I am not sure yet about which aspect. I have thought about these

To what extent is Chinas one child policy related to Chinas recent economic upswing?

I am afraid this is way too broad and might have some elements of business in it...

or

How is Chinas One Child Policy approached differently by rich and poor people?

I don‘t really know yet...I am really interested in this topic but have found almost no one having done an EE on this so far.

Other topics I have thought about are for example

-something about the conflict of religion and science in the age of Galileo Galilei, the age of enlightenment and that

-something about the Israel Palestine conflict, but I don‘t really know what aspect could be chosen there...

-another option would be to somehow compare the socialism in the soviet union, Cuba and china and about the success of the different types

-Or the role of Cuba in the cold war and the relationship with the us

The problem about the listed ideas is that I am not sure in which subject they fit. And I am really struggling to choose something as I don‘t know which one will be appreciated most by the IB.

I would be really glad if someone could help me

[BecBowen]

Hello! I am still deciding on my EE topic (im a little behind where I would like to be) and I would appreciate any advice.

I know that I want to work within World Studies because I love the local/global aspect and I also want to combine psychology and economics (both subjects I do). I got the idea from an offhand comment made by my economics teacher and I am fascinated by the concept of psychological influences in economics. I have been doing alot of research over the last few months (mainly following threads of info online) into behavioural economics and certain relevant ares of concern, and then other areas like social marketing when I felt stuck. But honestly I am finding it very difficult to actually narrow down from there or to find/be able to create a local example/study which I could use.

Any suggestions?

[asphoria]

I'm genuinely interested in doing my EE topic on comics and the over-sexualization of female character or the gender stereotypes and I wanted to base it on how these affect the way the comic is read but I'm having a hard time forming a research question that doesn't link it more to art than english lit. or english lit. & lang.

If anyone has any tips on how I can avoid focusing my question on Art and instead focus on the visual language as a component of english I'd really appreciate it! I'm aware the topic has most likely been done before but my teacher thinks I'd be able to do really well on it since I have a lot of background knowledge on comics and graphic novels, etc.

I'm also looking at possible theatre EEs though and at first I was interested in doing a practical investigation of Augusto Boal's techniques in Theatre of the Oppressed and its link to Bullying in school but I planned it out and realized it would be extremely difficult to carry out so if anyone could recommend a favorite practitioner or style of theater of theirs I could look into it would be greatly appreciated!

[asphoria]

I‘ve been scrolling through this website for about 2 hrs now to get inspiration as I have to decide on an EE topic in a month. I am thinking of doing mine in Geography about Chinas One-Child-Policy, however I am not sure yet about which aspect. I have thought about these

To what extent is Chinas one child policy related to Chinas recent economic upswing?

I am afraid this is way too broad and might have some elements of business in it...

or

How is Chinas One Child Policy approached differently by rich and poor people?

I don‘t really know yet...I am really interested in this topic but have found almost no one having done an EE on this so far.

Other topics I have thought about are for example

-something about the conflict of religion and science in the age of Galileo Galilei, the age of enlightenment and that

-something about the Israel Palestine conflict, but I don‘t really know what aspect could be chosen there...

-another option would be to somehow compare the socialism in the soviet union, Cuba and china and about the success of the different types

-Or the role of Cuba in the cold war and the relationship with the us

The problem about the listed ideas is that I am not sure in which subject they fit. And I am really struggling to choose something as I don‘t know which one will be appreciated most by the IB.

I would be really glad if someone could help me

Yeah your first topic sounds extremely like a mixture of geography and economics which would lead to a world studies question and it's also too broad so i would suggest narrowing it down!

Your second topic sounds interesting but you should definitely look into how you would collect research about the classes and their reactions to the policy, etc.

In relation to the topic about conflict between religion and science in the age of Galileo you could even link it to literature if you were interested for example in the book Perfume by Patrick Suskind but it depends on how you want to focus on it (just an idea since you're doing German Literature)

I think a lot of your topics are extremely broad at the moment so it would probably help you a lot if you narrowed them down! They also seem to touch on History quite a bit but it's also up to you to decide if you want a pure History EE which is a lot of work but tends to pay off or a world studies where you can compare History as well as another subject.

[Audrey Marie]

Does anyone have experience with writing their EE under the Human Rights topic? My adviser is wiling to let me do a Human Rights paper even though we don't offer the course at my school, but she's a bit worried because the only time an EE has gotten a lower grade than she predicted was on a Human Rights paper. Does anyone have advice as to how to approach this topic area in a way that can get me a good score? My topic would be looking at child marriage in India and comparing the way the world sees it as a human rights violation to the way the parents see it as a way to provide for their daughter or solve conflicts. Thanks!

[Susim Santra]

Hello guys, new here!!

here goes, so my EE subject is biology and i had to change my topic from "How Different Wavelengths of Light Affect the Efficiency of Photosynthesis studied via the production of co2 with Algae (scenedesmus quadricauda) at a given period of time?" to " How Different Wavelengths of Light Affect the fermentation rate of yeast studied via the production of co2, and would different medium affect this rate ?" due to lack of availability of the algae species , so my question to you guys would be is this too simple of a topic?

[Sofia.]

Hello guys, new here!! 

 

here goes, so my EE subject is biology and i had to change my topic from "How Different Wavelengths of Light Affect the Efficiency of Photosynthesis studied via the production of co2 with Algae (scenedesmus quadricauda) at a given period of time?" to " How Different Wavelengths of Light Affect the fermentation rate of yeast studied via the production of co2, and would different medium affect this rate ?" due to lack of availability of the algae species , so my question to you guys would be is this too simple of a topic? 

 

Welcome! I don't take Bio, so I wouldn't know if it's suitable, but the question needs some work. It's a bit hard to understand. "How do different wavelength of light affect the fermatation rate of yeast..." might make it more clear. Also, I don't know if you need "studied via the production of CO₂ in the title. 

Sorry that I couldn't help you with the Bio! 

[Sahil M]

Hi there!

 

This is more a generic question I had in mind. So i'm doing my EE in Chemistry along with 4 other of my classmates. The thing is, 3 of us (including me) are doing it on topics related to/ fall under Food Chemistry. What i wanted to know was that if there any rules or constrictions that the IBO may have imposed to prevent students from the same school to write their extended essays under the same chapters of the syllabus? Even if there aren't any such rules, is it possible that we may loose out on a few marks in the grading process due to a possible lack of individuality? 

 

Thanks

[JMo]

My EE is in history. I left Junior year thinking I would be writing an EE on Cleopatra...that didn't work out.

 

So, I've spent all of June coming up with and researching a new topic. I'm now going to be writing about the role of cryptanalysis/ signals intelligence in the Battle of the Atlantic.