How to Structure an Economics Extended Essay
Here is a step-by-step structure you can follow to complete your Extended Essay in Economics. The layout has changed recently, for example in terms of the cover sheet requirements and the reflections, but this post is up-to-date (and it includes a lot of helpful links).
Before you start writing...
Here are a few key points and other helpful links you’ll want to use:
- Be careful about choosing your research question. You’ve got a lot of options, but these generally fall under two categories 1) Evaluating the effects of a policy or 2) Determining the structure of a certain market. There are a lot of aspects that go into choosing a perfect EE question and it's worth taking your time to do this properly. (I'd be happy to meet with you to help you get your question right.
- Decide on your citation style. Most people go with MLA. It's best to decide this early on, so you gather the right info as you go. I recommend doing your citations as you write, so you don't loose track of which ...
How To Write Well in IB Subjects
Every year we (your humble IB teachers) read IA’s and EE’s that make the same mistake. We try to warn you about it. We try to explain this mistake, but every year a lot of people still do it.
It undermines your whole effort.
Brilliant students do it. Average students do it too. Some students who spend 40 hours on their Extended Essay research over the summer still do it.
What is it?
Before I tell you, let’s consider what makes a good doctor.
We have all been to good doctors and bad doctors. What makes the difference? What impresses us about doctors?
Explain the hard stuff
All doctors do “doctor things,” --they do specialist medical tests and then they understand the results. But good doctors interact with us differently. They explain those results (analysis), mentioning the complicated medical concepts and key words, but then they also explain those words clearly. They also explain the conclusions which can be drawn from the tests (evaluation) and how sure we could be about tho...
The JAM Structure for Business Management IA and EE Writing
The JAM structure is a simple, three-step framework you can use to improve the quality of your writing in IB Business Management.
JAM stands for Justification, Analysis and Mini-conclusion.
Since I first created this framework (way back in 2009) it's become very popular with IB schools around the world. It works really well because it helps you (and forces you) to do a couple of things that you wouldn't normally do, which can dramatically improve the effectiveness of your writing. It raises your grade because it forces you to show your thinking and mention why the tool or model is appropriate and then to also observe what the analysis has revealed.
Let's say you’ve chosen (as your IA question) to explore whether a restaurant should relocate from one shopping mall to another one. The second location is more popular, but also more expensive, so you'll need to analyze the opportunity in a few different ways.
In the weakest IAs and EEs the student seems to have decided their answer ...
How to Write Your Extended Essay (Getting Started)
Starting your Extended Essay is a big challenge.
The best advice I can give you is start early and choose your research question carefully. Starting early is a time-management aspect you'll have to figure out on your own. But I can help you a lot on the second part.
Coming up with an appropriate question is about 25% of the whole battle. Your supervisor can help you with this, but often they'll leave it to you.
And you’ll want to be very careful here. With the right question almost anything is possible. With the wrong question, you're setting yourself up to fail. Most students brainstorm possible ideas, ask for suggestions and read successful EE samples (which are often available in your high school library). But I want to help you to do better than the average student. The following 4 tests will help you make sure your RQ is top notch.
The Four Tests
A good research question (RQ) passes the following 4 tests:
#1 Is it the right scope?
Of course the question needs to be one that ...
Advanced Business Extended Essay Research
When looking for advanced information, be careful to only pull in details that are somehow relevant to your research question (RQ). It's worth spending some time exploring different types of sources --rather than just the first page of Google results.
A few techniques to improve the quality of your research:
1) Break your RQ into sub-RQ's
If your question is, "Should Amazon invest 10 billion dollars in nuclear power?" ask yourself (and people at the company) what are the questions that need to be answered before that major question can be answered. For example maybe, for this business, the questions are:
- Can they afford it?
- Is it going to improve the satisfaction of their customers and
- Is it going to help us improve their market share?
For another business, they might be more interested in improving their efficiency, or brand image. The sub-questions help you focus your research and make sure you're seeking out information that is relevant. Sub-questions also help you jus...
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