At one point my extended essay supervisor said that my essay was so
"bamboozling that it was bedazzling"which is probably the best way I could have
said that my essay was a hot mess.
Hello and welcome back to Ivy Lilia! Today
we're talking about the extended essay. Yes, a point of dread among many IB
students and I was not not one of those students. Basically in a nutshell, my
experience with the extended essay was so bad because I wrote my extended essay
left for six weeks, came back to a seven thousand word draft that was both a
monster and garbage, and then was royally wrecked. So here are five things that you
should never do with your extended essay to avoid having a horrific experience
such as mine. Number one don't pick a topic that's out of your wheelhouse. My
research question was "how do expectation-based information and social
-comparative information influence consumers' perceptions of fairness of
demand based dynamic pricing in the hotel industry?" it's a mouthful. My essay
was in psychology but really truly it was a business management essay. A big
mistake I made was doing an interdisciplinary paper. I should have
just done something that was in psychology straightforward, easy. There
was actual psychology research and not hospitality research parading as
psychology research. So keep in mind that if you are trying to force a topic into
a subject that it's really not a part of, it's going to be difficult it's
definitely doable and it's definitely interesting but it's really hard. Pick
something you really care about because you are going to have to think about
this topic a lot. Make it easy for yourself make it easy in terms of being
engaged doing research ensuring that you're not super stressed. Don't think
you need to reinvent the wheel with your topic. You should have a little bit of
nuance so that there's not an exact paper answering exactly your research
question, but you shouldn't think that you need to come up with something that
there's no research on you're not going to be able to write an essay. No one's
expecting you to be the expert in this field you're 17 so don't think that
there are really lofty expectations for your topic selection keep it easy and
keep it something that you can actually write to and actually have a really
intelligent essay about. Mistake number two don't start writing your essay
before you know exactly what you're going to do before you start writing you
need a simple concise table of contents a really clear list of what evidence
goes where but also how you're going to utilize those ideas what arguments
you're going to make how your topics are going to flow together if you're only
thinking about how you're going to cram in all your research you're going to
have a descriptive essay rather than an analytical one as you're researching and
especially when you start writing ensure that you know exactly how you're going
to answer your research question it is so important to think of the research
question as guidance for your answer which is your essay I thought of the
research question as a requirement that I just needed to put in my reflection
document and not really think about when I was writing the essay so because of
that I wrote my essay and then I went back and made my research question fit
my essay because of that my essay didn't really answer my question so it took so
many tries of rephrasing my research question editing my essay and going back
and forth before I had really answered my question if you use that question as
real guidance in your essay your essay will be so much more cohesive and
analytical because you've actually answered a question it's not just
ramblings about a topic it is so important to remember what you want each
paragraph of your essay to contribute to your overall argument ultimately 4,000
words isn't a lot so if you keep in mind what you want to do as you're planning
as you're writing and as you're it'll be so easy to understand what
you're doing in that essay and how well you're accomplishing it mistake number
three don't start too early and don't edit far after you've written so I
waited six weeks between when I had written my essay in one sitting and when
I had started editing or rather when I had read my essay and then I waited even
longer because I was so intimidated by that monster like the day after you've
written your first draft explain your topic and explain what you've tried to
do to someone explain your argument and how you go through it just walk them
through your essay without looking at your essay at all just talk about what
you did I thought this was so helpful I thought it really helped me clarify my
thoughts and how I wanted to approach my argument talking it through with someone
was really beneficial towards editing my essay and understanding the nuance I
wanted to achieve with my argument don't panic if your first draft isn't coming
out the way you want it do not put that first draft on the backburner don't
think I'll come back to this and maybe I'll be in a better mood and the writing
will be better your first draft is probably not going to be as coherent as
you'd like so if you wait and come back to it there's a chance you might not
understand what you meant and then a whole segment of your argument is just
gone number four don't overlook grammar and topic sentences don't confuse bad
grammar with bad ideas I was so consumed with the idea that my argument was bad
or it wasn't complex enough because I was getting upset that my grammar wasn't
perfect your first draft grammar is not going to be the best you can do but it
is useful to go through and edit that because you'll feel more confident in
your ideas if you're confident in your writing if you're frustrated with the
ideas in your essay take a step back think are you frustrated with the ideas
or are you frustrated because your essay doesn't read right you might be really
frustrated with the grammar and not really the argument you're making itself
mistake number five don't overthink the extended essay and don't dread it if you
overthink your extended essay it's not going to be right it's never going to be
exactly what you want that's okay it's okay to not have exactly the perfect ese
you were dreaming about ultimately you just need something that will help you
pursue the IB Diploma it is fantastic practice yes but it shouldn't be your
only practice in the IB program you shouldn't be focusing all of your
attention and energy on the EE ultimately you'll realize that the
extended si isn't going to make or break your diploma if you're watching this
video I assume you care about points and you care about your academic performance
you'll be fine I'm not gonna sit here and tell you the
extended essay was the most influential part of my IB experience it wasn't it
didn't change my life but you know it helped me realize that I'm stronger than
any academic assignment because every night I spent crying about how
frustrating it was I overcame I submitted an essay that ultimately I was
proud of even if it wasn't the best thing I ever gave the IB to read I hope
this video was helpful I really think that no matter what and no matter what
struggles you're having with the extended essay you can overcome it if
you would like more detailed advice about the extended essay just let me
know I'm always happy to make content that will help you so please let me know
in the comments or DM me on instagram at Ivy Lilia don't forget to subscribe of
course I can't make you but it would really help me and I'd really appreciate
it if you liked this video then you might like some of my other ones so you
should check them out and as always I'll see you later