Writing a Physics IA
(Assessments covering 2025-32 Syllabus)
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Structure:
The following details should be stated at the top of the first page of the report.
Title of the investigation
Word count
IB Candidate's personal code (alphanumeric, for example, xyz123)
Use the bold headings in this guide to structure your work, the ones munderlined I would consider optional, but could help structure your work. Where there are comments in quotes you can use this format and adjust it accordingly to your own work.
You need a title which should be the research question reformatted as a statement. For example, for the research question: 'How does the angle of attack affect the lift produced by an aerofoil?' would lead to an IA title: 'An investigation into the effect of changing the angle of attack on the lift produced by an aerofoil.'
Communication notes:
The IA now has a word limit of 3000 words rather than the previous 12 page limit
The following are not included in the word count.
Charts and diagrams
Data tables
Equations, formulas and calculations
Citations/references (whether parenthetical, numbered, footnotes or endnotes)
Works cited (chose MLA or Chicago and be consistent)
Headers
Figure numbers and titles go below the figure (this includes graphs, pictures, diagrams, etc). The title should be 'Figure XX: graph showing the relationship between....' or 'Figure XX: photograph showing the experimental set-up'. All tables should have headers above the 'Table 1: Raw Data Table'.
All images should be referenced. 'Self-drawn' or 'photograph taken by myself' are fine when the image is your work. Use at least one image in the exploration section as well as in text citations so you can demonstrate the correct use of citations, a key skill.
Anything in the citations (the last page of your work) needs to be cited in the text so the examiner can find it - the examiner does not want to know that you once read Pride and Prejudice, but which works were helpful in planning and writing up this investigation.
Have you asked a non-scientist to read it? Was there anything they did not understand? There should be no need to re-read sections in order to understand the report.
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