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Gr. 11-12 Extended Essay

This guide explains the process required to complete the IB Extended Essay.

After you’ve selected the subject for your EE, the next step is to define what your research will focus on: the topic.

At this stage, you need to consider:

  • What are my possible topics?
  • What do I know about these topics?
  • Are there attitudes or beliefs that should be questioned or supported?
  • Which topic areas or themes or periods interest me most within my subject area?

Focusing Your Topic

While you may already have an idea of how focus your research topic, there are some online tools you can use to help narrow your focus and identify possible keywords to use as search terms.

One example is Carrot2, an Open Source Search Results Clustering Engine. It can automatically organize small collections of search results, into thematic categories. You can view these results as a pie-chart, or a treemap, or organize the documents in your results into labeled folders.

For example, if you were thinking of doing a project on Internet surveillance, you could search for the terms "Internet" and "surveillance" and the tool would bring up a number of related topics, including surveillance systems, surveillance state, government surveillance, mass surveillance, Internet privacy, and countries under surveillance. You can choose one of these topics to see those relevant results.

Background Reading

After you decide on a topic of interest, you should do some background reading to better understand your topic. 

Some of things you might be looking for are:

  • A broad overview of the subject
  • Definitions of the topic
  • Introduction to key issues
  • Names of people who are authorities in the field
  • Major dates and events
  • Additional keywords and subject-specific vocabulary terms you can use later on in database searches
  • Bibliographies (lists of sources an author refers to in their work) - these can lead to additional relevant resources

Where should I look for background information?

Encyclopedias Subject Dictionaries Handbooks, Sourcebooks, & Manuals Current Issues Databases

General encyclopedias: cover a wide variety of topics

Subject encyclopedias: offer a deeper dive into a particular subject area

Help with defining and understanding terminology common to the topic

Provide background information (e.g., facts and figures) about a particular field or industry

Many databases specialize in coverage of “hot topics” and current events. They can provide both introductory and comprehensive looks into different issues.

Questions to consider at this stage of your research:

  • What has already been written about this topic?
  • Was it easy to find sources of information?
  • Is there a range of different sources available?
  • Is there a range of views or perspectives on the topic?
  • What interesting questions have started to emerge from this reading?