Sprint 1 - to a great research question
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Sprint 3 - to a detailed outline
Sprint 4 - to a strong first draft
Sprint 5 - to an excellent final submission
<aside> 🏃🏼 The aims of ‘Sprint 3 - to a detailed outline’→
It is best practice to produce a well-thought-out extended essay outline that your supervisor can give feedback on before the start of the summer break. This means that you will not waste any effort in the summer break on an approach that will not ‘work’ for the extended essay or a title that will not allow you to succeed.
Share your extended essay outline in such a way that your EE supervisor can give meaningful feedback on it.
Your WSEE outline should include at least the following:
At this point, your title should already have been agreed and recorded on ManageBac.
You need to have a title that frames your extended essay, such as “Understanding the Obesity Crisis in Texas.”
By this point, your research question should already have been agreed upon and recorded on ManageBac.
The research question must be sharply focused, and effective treatment must be possible within 4000 words, such as “To what extent can we understand the obesity crisis in Texas by analysing the biological and geographical factors?”.
The research question is clear and addresses an issue of research that is appropriately connected to the discussion in the essay. 5-6 marks - Criterion A: Focus and method
You need to show that you have sufficient data to analyse.
Your WSEE must be analytical. You need to be super careful that the overall feel of your essay is not descriptive.
You should present the outcome from the →
and
sections from ‣ with all the specific data that was requested.
An appropriate range of relevant source(s) and/or method(s) has been selected in relation to the topic and research question.
There is evidence of effective and informed selection of sources and/or methods.
5-6 marks - Criterion A: Focus and method
You should present the →
section from ‣. This should now be the second draft of this writing and be around 1000 words.
You need to be making use of (ideally) personally produced graphs, maps and (potentially) statistical tests to analyse your data.
At this stage, you should have already produced some maps as a ‘proof of concept’ for your intended arguments. These maps should be included at this point.
List the concepts, theories and models (from both subjects), graphs and maps you will be including in your WSEE (you do not have to have produced them all at this point - but you should have produced some). Each map and graph needs to have a suitable title and a link to/description of the data you will be using to produce it.
A friendly guide to choosing a chart type | Datawrapper Blog
The research is analysed effectively and clearly focused on the research question; the inclusion of less relevant research does not significantly detract from the quality of the overall analysis. Conclusions to individual points of analysis are effectively supported by the evidence. 10-12 marks - Criterion C: Critical thinking
Your WSEE needs to have the following sections - but sections can be broken down further into sub-sections using subheadings:
You need to produce a section by section outline for your extended essay. Each section needs:
The structure of the essay clearly is appropriate in terms of the expected conventions for the topic, the argument and subject in which the essay is registered.
Layout considerations are present and applied correctly. The structure and layout support the reading, understanding and evaluation of the extended essay. 3-4 marks - Criterion D: Presentation
Your EE outline should include at least the following:
At this point, your title should already have been agreed and recorded on ManageBac.
You need to have a title that frames your extended essay, such as “Potential cooling due to urban trees during heat waves in Geneva, Switzerland.”
By this point, your research question should already have been agreed upon and recorded on ManageBac.
The research question must be sharply focused, and effective treatment must be possible within 4000 words, such as “To what extent could urban trees mitigate the impacts of heat waves in urban areas, focusing on the tree-lined streets of Geneva, Switzerland”.
The research question is clear and addresses an issue of research that is appropriately connected to the discussion in the essay. 5-6 marks - Criterion A: Focus and method
You need to show that you have sufficient data to analysis.
Your EE must be analytical. You need to be super careful that the overall feel of your essay is not descriptive.
You should present the outcome from the →
and
sections from ‣ with all the specific data that was requested.
If you plan to collect primary data, which is most cases should be what you plan to do, you need to explain your data collection:
Video: How do you choose the right methods for your research?
A student guide to the A Level independent investigation (Non-examined Assessment - NEA) - RGS