The Extended Essay in History is a 4000 word research essay which takes the form of an academic journal article. You can write about any aspect of History, provided that the event(s) occurred more than ten years ago.

You will be allocated a supervisor, and you'll have three mandatory sessions with your supervisor (in total between three and five hours). Your supervisor will:

• provide you with advice and guidance in the skills of undertaking research
• encourage and support you throughout the research and writing of the extended essay
• discuss the choice of topic with you and, in particular, help to formulate a well-focused research question which is suitable and ensure that the chosen research question satisfies given requirements.

Complete overview of the EE, created by the IB: https://ibpublishing.ibo.org/extendedessay/,

Writing the extended essay

The structure of the essay is very important. It helps you to organise the argument, making the best use of the evidence collected. There are six required elements of the final work to be submitted.

Six required elements of the extended essay:

1. Title page
2. Contents page
3. Introduction
4. Body of the essay
5. Conclusion
6. References and bibliography

Title page

The title page should include only the following information:

• the title of the essay
• the research question
• the subject for which the essay is registered (For World studies EEs: State the theme and the two subjects utilised)
• word count. (no more than 4000 words)

The title

The title of your essay should be a clear, focused summative statement of your research, which gives the reader an indication of your research topic. It should not be phrased as a research question.

Contents page

A contents page must be provided at the beginning of the extended essay and all pages should be numbered. An index page is not required and if included will be treated as if it is not present.

Introduction

The introduction should tell the reader what to expect in the essay, making clear to the reader the focus of the essay, the scope of the research, in particular an indication of the sources to be used, and an insight into the line of argument to be taken. While you should have a sense of the direction and key focus of their essay, it is sometimes advisable to finalise the introduction once the body of the essay is complete.

Body of the essay (research, analysis, discussion and evaluation)

The main task is writing the body of the essay, which should be presented in the form of a reasoned argument. The form of this varies with the subject of the essay but as the argument develops it should be clear to the reader what relevant evidence has been discovered, where/how it has been discovered and how it supports the argument. Sub-headings within the main body of the essay will help the reader to understand the argument (and will also help the student to keep on track). In structuring your extended essay, you must take into consideration the expected conventions of a History essay.

Once the main body of the essay is complete, it is possible to finalize the introduction (which tells the reader what to expect) and the conclusion (which says what has been achieved, including notes of any limitations and any questions that have not been resolved).

Any information that is important to the argument must not be included in appendices or footnotes/endnotes. The examiner will not read notes or appendices, so an essay that is not complete in itself will be compromised across the assessment criteria.

Conclusion

The conclusion says what has been achieved, including notes of any limitations and any questions that have not been resolved. While you might draw conclusions throughout the essay based on your findings, it is important that there is a final, summative conclusion at the end.

Conclusion(s) must relate to the research question posed.

References and bibliography

You should use your chosen style of academic referencing as soon as you start writing. That way you are less likely to forget to include a citation. It is also easier than trying to add references at a later stage. For more information on this, refer to the guidelines in the IB document Effective citing and referencing or go to the referencing page on this site.

Other requirements

1. The candidate name or number should not appear on any of the pages of the extended essay including the title page.

2. The essay should be formatted as follows:

• using Arial font
• font size 12
• double-spaced
• numbered pages.

3. The extended essay should be saved as an acceptable file type, in either a DOC, DOCX, PDF or RTF.

4. The extended essay should be saved in an acceptable file size of no more than 10MB, which still allows for high- quality images.

5. All diagrams, maps and tables, must be digitally produced where possible to prevent excessive file sizes when included as part of the essay.

6. In preparation for electronic upload, supervisors must remind candidates that the model for the extended essay is a paper in an academic journal. No provision is therefore planned for the upload of media other than the essay itself and accompanying images.

• Appendices must be used sparingly. Examiners are not required to read appendices, so material essential to the essay must always be included in the body of the essay (including large images) and any material in the appendix should be minimal and selected with care.
• Irrespective of the subject, the extended essay should be modelled on an academic journal/ research paper which can exist and be understood on its own, without the need to access external links or accompanying material such as DVDs. There is no requirement for the examiner to refer to any material that is not included in the extended itself when assessing the work.

7. Receiving an electronic version of an extended essay will make it easier for examiners to gauge at which point an essay has reached 4,000 words. Candidates must be reminded of the penalty for exceeding the word count or circumventing it using footnotes incorrectly (for anything other than referencing).