In order to make the most of the time you have with your supervisor, it is important that you understand the role of this person in the process. 

Your supervisor will support you by assisting with:

• Selecting and narrowing your research question
• Advising you on the suitability of your research methods and sources
• Meeting with you for official reflection sessions (documented on the RPPF) and for check-in sessions
• Providing you with subject guidance, including exemplars and IB subject resources (and support in understanding these)
• Offering encouragement and assistance with monitoring your progress
• Commenting fully on one draft of your EE

What can you do to make the most of your supervisor time?

• Schedule meetings in advance.
• Have specific questions and agenda items prepared.
• Share progress before meetings to give your supervisor time to review your work. (i.e. Essay draft or NoodleTools outline)
• Stick to your timeline. Set deadlines to give your supervisor enough time to adequately review work before meetings.
• Show up for meetings. DO NOT make your supervisor chase you for work. 
• If you are behind or struggling, see your supervisor or the EE coordinator right away.

Check-in Sessions

• Usually shorter than formal sessions
• Progress checks
• Guidance with resources for research
• Guidance on methods of research
• Subject-area specific questions
• Not officially document in the RPPF, but should be reflected upon in the Researcher's Reflective Space.

IB Guidance

First formal reflection session
Interim reflection session
Final reflection session (viva voce)

Each of these sessions will be documented on the RPPF in Managebac.

Explore Your Interests

Take some time to explore your interests and passions to help lead you to a subject.

• Mind Map

• Personal Inventory

Required Elements of the Extended Essay

List and description of the six required elements of the final extended essay work that is to be submitted for extended essays for November 2018 and forward (IB Guide 2018).

Presentation Requirements of the Extended Essay

Information on formatting the extended essay, covering: word counts (what is included and what is NOT included), illustrations, tables, footnotes and endnotes, appendices and specimen materials. Covers essays submitted in November 2018 and forward (IB Guide 2018).

Assessment objectives and criteria for the extended essay - first exams 2018

Assessment objectives and criteria for students submitting extended essays, beginning with the Class of 2018.

Assessment of the EE - Advice for Students

Use this list to help you think about the five assessment criteria for the EE and whether you have addressed the expectations within your essay.

Assessment Grade Descriptors for the Extended Essay

A list of the qualitative grade descriptors for the Extended Essay, grades A through E. IB senior examiners will use these descriptors to set the boundaries (i.e., grade) the extended essay beginning in May 2018.

 

Biology

Business management

Chemistry

Design technology

Economics

Environmental Systems & Societies

Film

Global politics

Language acquisition

Mathematics

Music

Physics

Psychology

Studies in language and literature

Theatre

Visual arts

World Studies

 

• 

  IB Effective Citing and Referencing Guide

  Guidance on IB requirements for citing and referencing in the Diploma Program, including what, when, and how to cite.

• 

  Ethical Guidelines for Extended Essays Research and Fieldwork

  Explicit guidance from the IB on any research or fieldwork undertaken as a part of an Extended Essay.

• 

  Guidelines for use of Animals in an IB World School

  These guidelines from IB set out the parameters for the acceptable inclusion of animals in an IB World School.

Reflection in the Extended Essay:

Reflection in the extended essay focuses on your progress during the planning, research and writing process. It is intended to help you with the development of your extended essay as well as allowing you the opportunity to consider the effectiveness of your choices, to re-examine your ideas and to decide whether changes are needed.

The emphasis in the extended essay is on process reflection, characterized by reflecting on:

• conceptual understandings
• decision-making
• engagement with data
• the research process
• time management
• methodology
• successes and challenges
• the appropriateness of sources

You are encouraged to informally reflect throughout the experience of researching and writing the extended essay, but are required to reflect formally during the reflection sessions with your supervisor and when completing the Reflections on planning and progress form.

How to Write IB Extended Essay Reflections

Criterion E: Engagement
(from IB EE Guide)
This criterion assesses the student’s engagement with their research focus and the research process. It will be applied by the examiner at the end of the assessment of the essay, after considering the student’s Reflections on planning and progress form.

1. Engagement with the process: the student has engaged in discussions with their supervisor in the planning and progress of their research; the student is able to reflect on and refine the research process, and react to insights gained through the exploration of their research question; the student is able to evaluate decisions made throughout the research process and suggest improvements for their own working practices.
2. Engagement with their research focus: an insight into the student’s thinking, intellectual initiative and creative approach through reflections on the thought and research process; the extent to which the student voice is present rather than that of the supervisor and academics; is the student’s engagement reflected?

Thinking about definitions and synonyms can help with identifying keywords.  See:

• Thesaurus.com
• Dictionary.com
• OneLook.com

 

Carrot 2 is an Open Source Search Results Clustering Engine. Click here to navigate to the webpage. It can automatically organize small collections of search results, into thematic categories. It allows you options to not only see results in a list format, but also visually, like the images below. 

Spend time thinking about what you know about your topic.  Write it down and then copy what you have written into https://worditout.com/word-cloud/create  This will give you a cloud similar to the one below which will emphasize the keywords of your current knowledge.  This will give you an idea of the key areas you already have some knowledge of and may highlight a potential topic you would like to focus your research on.

After you decide on a topic of interest you should undertake some preliminary general reading around the issue.  Questions you must consider at this stage are:

• What has already been written about the topic?
• Was it easy to find sources of information?
• Is there a range of different sources available?
• Is there a range of views or perspectives on the topic?
• What interesting questions have started to emerge from this reading?

1. Choose a topic.
2. Narrow the topic by considering:

• Time period
• Location
• Category
• Perspective, point of view, or issue

3. Draft a more specific & updated question.
4. Consider your question from different approaches and draft a question for each.

• Time
• Cause
• Effect
• Place

5. Choose a question.
6. Limit your question even more by considering:

• People
• Perspective
• Place
• Problem

Research Question Generator

Use keywords from your background research to help generate possible research questions.

 

• Biology Command Terms

• Business Management Command Terms

• Chemistry Command Terms

• Economics Command Terms

• ESS Command Terms

• Film Command Terms

• Global Politics Command Terms

• Language A (Lang-Lit) Command Terms

• Language A Command Terms

• Mathematics Command Terms

• Music Command Terms

• Physics Command Terms

• Psychology Command Terms

• Theatre Command Terms

• Visual Arts Command Terms

Use the EE question starters to help you.

Consider the command terms from the subject of your essay (see links below).

Consider your research outcomes.

• What are some possible outcomes of your research?
• What sort of argument might you make and how might your research support this? 
• What will you do if the research is not available or sufficient to support a sustained argument i your essay?

EE Question Starters

A research plan helps you come up with, organize, and keep track of search terms to make sure you can locate the best sources of information. One challenge of research can be coming up with the very best combination of terms, and you may need to change these combinations depending on what resource you use.

You can use the search plan template (courtesy of Barton College Library) to help create your plan.

• 

  Research Plan Template

• 

  Research Plan Sample

You can use the research plan template found in your HIS Handbook for the Extended Essay to help create your plan.

HIS Handbook for the Extended Essay

Directions:

• Pose your topic in the form of a statement OR a question.
• Choose 2-4 most important terms (keywords) drawn directly from your research statement/question and write each in the Keywords column in separate boxes.
• In the synonyms column, write at least ONE synonym, or related term (broader or narrower) for each keyword.

Tip:  You can use the subject headings from helpful books or articles to help find potential search terms. Also, look at subject clusters in resource databases (i.e. NewsBank or Questia) or news sites (i.e. NT Times or Financial Times) for other ideas. 

A research proposal shows that you have a topic worthy of investigation, that you have an understanding of that topic, and that there is enough research available to you. In order to be officially approved for your topic and supervisor, you will need to complete a research proposal that contains the following information:

Your Name

Date

Research Proposal

I. Subject:

II. Research Question:

III. Introduction (1 - 2 paragraphs / 500 words)

• Why are you interested?
• Why is this worth studying?
• What do you hope to discover through further research?
• What research methods do you plan to use?
• Predictions

IV. Lab Plans (if applicable)

Annotated Bibliography - 10 sources

What is an Annotated Bibliography?

• A BIBLIOGRAPHY is a list of sources used for research on a paper.
• An ANNOTATION is a brief summary of something.
• So, An ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY is a bibliography that includes a brief summary from the findings of your research.

A Sample Bibliography:

Lyman, Howard B.  Test Scores and What They Mean.  Boston:  Allyn and Bacon, 1998.

This book gives a detailed view on both sides of the argument for standardized testing, but 
also how to prepare for them.  A large part of the book is used to discuss ethical issues in testing.  Is it right or wrong?  The author leaves that decision up to the reader.  Some sections 
include validity, reliability, and usability of the standardized test.  Also included are sample test questions for the readers to look at to help them decide whether a sophomore in high school
should know the information.

Why do an Annotated Bibliography?

• They help you organize your thoughts
• Builds a perspective of what other people are doing in the field of your topic.
• A good skill to build for college, where you will more than likely complete several before graduating with a Bachelor’s, more with an advanced degree.
• Keeps you from going back to your source, if done well.
• All good bibs do the following: Summarize – Assess – Reflect

How do I create an Annotated Bibliography?

Annotations should have the correct MLA citation and be four sentences or more long.

They must:

• Describe this work.

• Think of a way to summarize the whole work.

• You should look for a direct quote from the source so that you can either directly quote it or paraphrase it in your own paper.

• How is the information vital to your research.

MLA Citation                               

• The first thing you should do with an annotated bib is write down all of the information about the source as you would a normal MLA citation.

• Once you have that information and format that entry, then you can begin your annotation.

Part 1: How is the information important

• What type of work is this? Is it an overview of a topic? Is it a study?

• What part of the book/article be useful? Or only a chapter or a section or the whole source?

• What information is found about the author?

Part 2: Summarize the work with these questions

• How are the chapters and sections divided? How are they arranged?

• What all can be found in the work?

• Why is this information important, interesting, or relevant?

• You can also use this sentence to set up your quote.

Part 3: The quote (optional)

This is the easy part, find a quote that is important to your research, copy it down with all the information directly. Should look like this:

Sampson says on page 3, “Living life as a scrap yard technician was hard, but the time I spent with my son was even more challenging.”

Part 4: Validity

• This sentence simply wraps up the article by stating how you would use the source, at all, in your research?

• Is it a primary source? Does it contradict or agree with your own thesis proposal?

• Will you use it as a building block for your own research argument?

• Is the article at all biased or set up in a manner that makes you question its worth?

Taking good notes throughout your research process will help you avoid plagiarism, save you time when writing your paper, and assist you in creating internal citations and your Works Cited page.

Here are some note taking tips from the Modern Language Association:

• Keep a complete and thorough list of all of your sources.
• Link your sources to the notes you take.
• Make sure you notes clearly define what you take from the source (ideas, quotes, paraphrases, etc.) and what is yours. 

HOW TO STUDY EFFICIENTLY: THE CORNELL METHOD - Video

WHY CORNELL NOTES - Video

ONE NOTE: REVIEW - Video

HOW TO READ, TAKE NOTES AND UNDERSTAND JOURNAL ARTICLES - Video

 

FREE Digital Resources - Padlet 

Destiny Homepage - On Campus

Destiny Homepage - Off Campus

HOW TO GOOGLE LIKE A PRO - Video

 

Pew Research Center

A nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world.

Wolfram|Alpha: Computational Intelligence

Designed to provide a simple starting point for exploration of general topics such as countries, chemicals, dates or people.

BuzzFeedNews/everything

An index of all our open-source data, analysis, libraries, tools, and guides. - BuzzFeedNews/everything

ProPublica - Investigative Journalism and News in the Public Interest

ProPublica has been a recipient of the Pulitzer Prizes for public service, explanatory reporting, national reporting, investigative reporting and, most recently, feature writing. See the full list of our awards.

Quandl

The source for financial, economic, and alternative datasets, serving investment professionals.

Statistics Sweden

Save retrieval You can make a search in the Statistical Database that you can save as a favourite or share via e-mail. You can save your search as it looks on the screen, in different file formats or as a graph.

Welcome to UNSD

News 9 July 2019 - The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2019 reviews progress in the fourth year of implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The report uses the latest available data to track global progress of the 17 goals with infographics, and presents an in-depth analysis of selected indicators for each goal.

Central Intelligence Agency

People from nearly every country share information with CIA, and new individuals contact us daily. If you have information you think might interest CIA due to our foreign intelligence collection mission, there are many ways to reach us. If you know of an imminent threat to a location inside the U.S., immediately contact your local law enforcement orFBI Field Office .

FiveThirtyEight

Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight uses statistical analysis - hard numbers - to tell compelling stories about elections, politics, sports, science, economics and lifestyle.

Socrata

outpatient drug and alcohol treatment centers delray beach

BigQuery public datasets | BigQuery | Google Cloud

The Cloud Public Datasets Program catalog is in GCP Marketplace. You can find more details about each individual dataset by viewing the Marketplace pages in the Datasets section. Go to Datasets in the GCP Marketplace A public dataset is any dataset that is stored in BigQuery and made available to the general public through the Google Cloud Public Dataset Program.

Data.gov

The U.S. Coast Guard maintains an archive of historical vessel position movements, collected through the Nationwide Automatic Identification System (NAIS). Originally designed to improve maritime safety and security, these historical vessel position records have proven to be a valuable resource for a variety of engineers and researchers studying the aquatic world.

Source evaluation is more than just deciding if a resources is good/bad or reliable/unreliable. When you evaluate a source, you consider how it fits within your current research and how it works to answer your research question. Not only will you consider the reliability of the source, but you will also need to consider how it relates to the research you have already gathered. Below are some sources that will help you.

Video Guides

Navigating Digital Information - Video Channel

Video series by Crash Course:
* Examine information using the same skills and questions as fact-checkers
* Read laterally to learn more about the authority and perspective of sources
* Evaluate different types of evidence, from videos to infographics
* Understand how search engines and social media feeds work
* Break bad internet habits like impatience and passivity, and build better ones

Using Online Encyclopedias

As a tool for research, free online encyclopedias can be valuable resources, but there are several reasons why you should be cautious in using them:

• they tend to be general encyclopedias

• very often the author is unknown

• there is no guarantee that the content meets standards of academic rigour—it may not, for example, have been through a process of peer review

• the content can be unstable, in that it can change at any time.

A bibliography that only cites these for reference or an argument that is overly reliant on them will not demonstrate the necessary “range of sources” required by the assessment criteria for the extended essay. They may also not be relevant or appropriate for the research question being explored. Many online encyclopedias are not scholarly sources; however, if used appropriately and critically they can offer a useful starting point for undertaking research. 

If using free online encyclopedias, you should do the following.

• Follow the references provided by the encyclopedia; this will help to verify the information given.

• Consider whether the article is part of a larger project, where a number of people are contributing to the discussion. If it is, then it implies that the writers have more than a casual interest in the topic being written about.

• Look to see if there is a rating for the information provided. If there is then this means that the information has undergone some sort of peer review and been given a rating. While not the same as an academic peer review, it can aid the judgment of the “quality” of the information.

The key point to remember, if you do use information that is found on the internet, you are responsible for ensuring that it is both reliable and accurate.  You could produce an annotated bibliography as part of your Researcher’s reflection space. An annotated bibliography provides a concise summary of each source and some assessment of its value and relevance. 

Adapted from "The research and writing process; Academic honesty, Using online encyclopedias and other similar information websites", from Extended Essay Guide, International Baccalaureate Organization, 2016.

OPVL

Use this template from IB for All to help you.
Remember, the template is just a guide. You should adapt it to fit your purposes and your own writing style.
The origin of this source is a _____ (magazine, newspaper, speech, etc.) that was written by ______ (name) in ______ (time) in _____ (location). It's purpose was to ____ so ____. A value of it is that it _____. However, a limitation is that it _____.

Annotated Bibliography

What is an Annotated Bibliography?

• A BIBLIOGRAPHY is a list of sources used for research on a paper.
• An ANNOTATION is a brief summary of something.
• So, An ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY is a bibliography that includes a brief summary from the findings of your research.

A Sample Bibliography:

Lyman, Howard B.  Test Scores and What They Mean.  Boston:  Allyn and Bacon, 1998.

This book gives a detailed view on both sides of the argument for standardized testing, but 
also how to prepare for them.  A large part of the book is used to discuss ethical issues in testing.  Is it right or wrong?  The author leaves that decision up to the reader.  Some sections
include validity, reliability, and usability of the standardized test.  Also included are sample test questions for the readers to look at to help them decide whether a sophomore in high school
should know the information. (Note: this bibliography does not contain a direct quote, as needed in yours)

Why do an Annotated Bibliography?

• They help you organize your thoughts
• Builds a perspective of what other people are doing in the field of your topic.
• A good skill to build for college, where you will more than likely complete several before graduating with a Bachelor’s, more with an advanced degree.
• Keeps you from going back to your source, if done well.
• All good bibs do the following: Summarize – Assess – Reflect

How do I create an Annotated Bibliography?

Annotations should have the correct MLA citation and be four sentences or more long.

They must:

• Describe this work.

• Think of a way to summarize the whole work.

• You should look for a direct quote from the source so that you can either directly quote it or paraphrase it in your own paper.

• How is the information vital to your research.

MLA Citation                               

• The first thing you should do with an annotated bib is write down all of the information about the source as you would a normal MLA citation.

• Once you have that information and format that entry, then you can begin your annotation.

Part 1: How is the information important

• What type of work is this? Is it an overview of a topic? Is it a study?

• What part of the book/article be useful? Or only a chapter or a section or the whole source?

• What information is found about the author?

Part 2: Summarize the work with these questions

• How are the chapters and sections divided? How are they arranged?

• What all can be found in the work?

• Why is this information important, interesting, or relevant?

• You can also use this sentence to set up your quote.

Part 3: The quote (optional)

This is the easy part, find a quote that is important to your research, copy it down with all the information directly. Should look like this:

Sampson says on page 3, “Living life as a scrap yard technician was hard, but the time I spent with my son was even more challenging.”

Part 4: Validity

• This sentence simply wraps up the article by stating how you would use the source, at all, in your research?

• Is it a primary source? Does it contradict or agree with your own thesis proposal?

• Will you use it as a building block for your own research argument?

• Is the article at all biased or set up in a manner that makes you question its worth?