Commenting on one completed draft of the essay is a very important aspect of the latter stages in

the process, and the last point at which the supervisor sees the essay before it is finally uploaded for

submission. It is therefore vital that the level of support given is appropriate—too little support and the

ability of the student to meet their potential is compromised; too much help and it will not be the work of

an independent learner.

The best way of conducting this last stage is for the student to submit the essay prior to a supervision

session to allow the supervisor to add their comments. This should be followed by a one-to-one

discussion between the supervisor and the student in which they go through the comments together as

these become a starting point for a dialogue about the essay. This advice should be in terms of the way

the work could be improved, but the draft must not be heavily annotated or edited by the supervisor.

What supervisors can do

Comments can be added that indicate that the essay could be improved. These comments should be

open-ended and not involve editing the text, for example:

• Issue: the research question is expressed differently in three places (the title page, the introduction and

the conclusion).

Comment: is your research question consistent through the essay, including on the title page?

• Issue: the essay rambles and the argument is not clear.

Comment: your essay lacks clarity here. How might you make it clearer?

• Issue: the student has made a mistake in their calculations.

Comment: check this page carefully.

• Issue: the student has left out a section of the essay.

Comment: you are missing something here. What is it? Check the essay against the requirements.

• Issue: the essay places something in the appendix that should be in the body of the essay.

Comment: are you sure this belongs here?

• Issue: the conclusion is weak.

Comment: what is it that you are trying to say here? Have you included all your relevant findings? Have

you looked at unanswered questions?

• Issue: the essay has an incomplete citation.

Comment: you need to check this page for accuracy of referencing.

What supervisors cannot do:

• Correct spelling and punctuation.

• Correct experimental work or mathematics.

• Re-write any of the essay.

• Indicate where whole sections of the essay would be better placed.

• Proofread the essay for errors.

• Correct bibliographies or citations.

After commenting on one full draft, the next version of the essay that the supervisor sees must be the final

one submitted to them before the viva voce. This version of the extended essay must be clean; in other

words, it must not contain any comments from the supervisor or any other person. Once this version has

been submitted to the supervisor and discussed, students are not permitted to make any further changes

to it, unless deemed appropriate by the supervisor because of an administrative error. For this reason, it is

important that students are advised to ensure that it meets all formatting and submission requirements

before they upload it.

Supervisors must have already read the final version of the essay, sent to them by the candidate, before

this session takes place.

Students should bring the following to this session:

• extracts from their RRS that illustrate how they have grown as learners through the process of reflection

• a willingness to share their personal experience and to discuss the skills and development of conceptual

understandings that they have acquired through the completion of the extended essay.

The viva voce is a short interview between the student and the supervisor, and is the mandatory

conclusion to the extended essay process. Students who do not attend the viva voce will be

disadvantaged under criterion E (engagement) as the Reflections on planning and progress form will be

incomplete.

The viva voce is conducted once the student has submitted the final version of their extended essay. At

this point in the process no further changes can be made to the essay. The viva voce is a celebration of the

completion of the essay and a reflection on what the student has learned from the process.

The viva voce is:

• an opportunity to ask the student a variety of open-ended questions to elicit holistic evidence of the

student’s learning experience.

• an opportunity for the supervisor to confirm the authenticity of the student’s ideas and sources

• an opportunity to reflect on successes and difficulties encountered in the research process

• an aid to the supervisor’s comments on the Reflections on planning and progress form.

The viva voce should last 20–30 minutes. This is included in the recommended amount of time a

supervisor should spend with the student.

In conducting the viva voce and writing their comments on the Reflections on planning and progress form,

supervisors should bear in mind the following.

• The form is an assessed part of the extended essay. The form must include: comments made by the

supervisor that are reflective of the discussions undertaken with the student during their supervision/

reflection sessions; the student’s comments; and the supervisor’s overall impression of the student’s

engagement with the research process.

• An incomplete form resulting from supervisors not holding reflection sessions, or students not

attending them, could lead to criterion E (engagement) being compromised.

• In assessing criterion E (engagement), examiners will take into account any information given on the

form by the student about unusual intellectual inventiveness. This is especially the case if the student is

able to demonstrate what has been learned as a result of this process or the skills developed.

• Examiners want to know that students understand any material (which must be properly referenced)

that they have included in their essays. If the way the material is used in context in the essay does

not clearly establish this, the supervisor can check the student’s understanding in the viva voce and

comment on this on the Reflections on planning and progress form.

• If there appear to be major shortcomings in citations or referencing, the supervisor should investigate

thoroughly. No essay should be authenticated if the supervisor believes the student may be guilty of

plagiarism or some other form of academic misconduct.

• The comment made by the supervisor should not attempt to do the examiner’s job. It should refer to

things, largely process-related, that may not be obvious in the essay itself.

• Unless there are particular problems, the viva voce should begin and end positively. Completion of a

major piece of work such as the extended essay is a great achievement for students.