Research Question
Extended Essay Research Question
Due to your EE supervisor at your first meeting
50-point quiz grade – IB English HL 1
The assignment:
Write a one to two sentence question that will be the crux of your research throughout the extended essay process. Use the attached form.
If you learn nothing else from the extended essay, learn this:
The better your topic is up front, the better (and easier) your paper will be in the end.
Here are some quotes from current seniors to support my claim.
When asked about the biggest challenge in writing the EE, students said:
“coming up with idea in the first place, once I had the idea, I could focus more, hard to narrow topic”
“hardest part- finding a topic, had to be really specific, so it was more difficult. Needed a few tries and approvals from supervisor”
“having to start from scratch, not really knowing what to do”
“getting started was the hardest point”
“challenging to find specific topic that I was willing to write so much about”
When asked about the biggest accomplishments and successes, students said:
“felt sense of accomplishment when I was done, proud of myself about how much I was able to extract from one narrow topic”
“being able to evaluate a certain topic a lot better, looking in depth, something I was interested in”
“surprised at how much I found to support thesis”
“4000 words was daunting, but after you start writing, not as hard as expected, but not a joke”
“finally finished, longest paper I’ve written, really proud of it”
“found the motif of time in more subtle ways than expected, not just what was in hypothesis”
“surprised that I was able to hit 3993 words, almost going over- had to cut underestimated how much I could analyze”
In other words, if you struggle through the challenge of finding a strong research question, you will struggle less with the rest of the process, and you’ll be proud of yourself at the end. It’s all about the research question.
Why a question?
Due to your EE supervisor at your first meeting
50-point quiz grade – IB English HL 1
The assignment:
Write a one to two sentence question that will be the crux of your research throughout the extended essay process. Use the attached form.
If you learn nothing else from the extended essay, learn this:
The better your topic is up front, the better (and easier) your paper will be in the end.
Here are some quotes from current seniors to support my claim.
When asked about the biggest challenge in writing the EE, students said:
“coming up with idea in the first place, once I had the idea, I could focus more, hard to narrow topic”
“hardest part- finding a topic, had to be really specific, so it was more difficult. Needed a few tries and approvals from supervisor”
“having to start from scratch, not really knowing what to do”
“getting started was the hardest point”
“challenging to find specific topic that I was willing to write so much about”
When asked about the biggest accomplishments and successes, students said:
“felt sense of accomplishment when I was done, proud of myself about how much I was able to extract from one narrow topic”
“being able to evaluate a certain topic a lot better, looking in depth, something I was interested in”
“surprised at how much I found to support thesis”
“4000 words was daunting, but after you start writing, not as hard as expected, but not a joke”
“finally finished, longest paper I’ve written, really proud of it”
“found the motif of time in more subtle ways than expected, not just what was in hypothesis”
“surprised that I was able to hit 3993 words, almost going over- had to cut underestimated how much I could analyze”
In other words, if you struggle through the challenge of finding a strong research question, you will struggle less with the rest of the process, and you’ll be proud of yourself at the end. It’s all about the research question.
Why a question?