Sebi’s Steps to Success

by Sebastian Gutierrez

Step 1. Find a subject that interests you!

Finding a subject of interest to yourself is very important. It is way easier for you to write about something that you are genuinely interested in than something that you’re only doing because you think it will get you a good score. Think about things that you enjoy doing every day or subjects that you like in school. Whether it be Science, English, or any other subject, it is always doable, and you can still get the best score depending on the effort you put towards it.

Step 2. Find a supervisor that works best with you!

 Finding a supervisor is very important. You want to make sure that you can find a supervisor that knows your subject. You don’t want to have your science teacher be your supervisor for your English EE. You also need to consider teachers that you know have the most knowledge or experience in supervising EEs. It is important that you have someone who knows the grading scale and has enough experience to accurately score your EE. Make sure to email your teachers early because the more popular they are, the faster their slots will fill up. EE’s are a lot of work for supervisors too, so they usually stop accepting people after a certain number.

Step 3. Make your research question!

 Making a research question can be hard for some people, and that is totally okay. Think of your topic and consider specific ideas within it. Whether that be a book for English essays or a specific science concept for a science essay. Once you consider what research question you would like to have, go to friends to help you revise and reformulate it, to better the question, and you can even ask different teachers for help on making your research question as good as it can get. After you have done this, go to your EE supervisor and ask for information on how to better your research question, they will give you the most amount of help and this will help you later. When you’re asking your teacher to be your supervisor, make sure you tell them what your research question is so they know what they’ll be helping you with.

The seven subjects that you can choose from are as follows:

Group 1: Studies in Language and Literature.

Group 2: Language acquisition, including classical languages.

Group 3: Individuals and societies.

Group 4: The sciences.

Group 5: Mathematics.

Group 6: The arts.

Group 7: Interdisciplinary essays.

 Start looking into the subjects that interest you and go from there!

Step 4. Do research!

 There are many ways to do research for your Extended Essay and there are a lot of them that will get you the best score you can get. Make sure to avoid sources like Wikipedia because those are not reliable, and they can get you a worse score. Use sources like Google Scholar, or JSTOR, which are very reliable and will get you a better score. Make sure to keep a log of the sources you use and read from so that you can cite them and put them in your “Works Cited” section at the end of your Extended Essay.

Step 5. Write an outline!

 Writing an outline is a very important part of the Extended Essay process. This is very important because it gives you a great guideline to have while writing your EE. Without good guidelines you can easily go off track and that will get you a worse score. When writing your outline take it seriously and make sure to add any citations so that you don’t have to go back to the sources and find all the information again. Give a brief summary of what you will write about in each section and paragraph and make sure you work efficiently.

Step 6. Write the Essay!

 Writing the essay is easily the most important part of this whole process, but it should be so much easier because of all the preparation that has been done beforehand. Make sure to add plenty of citations and back your claim up with the most amount of info you can. Remember to stick to the question and don’t go off task. You must write around 4000 words WITHOUT PASSING it because anything after the 4000-word mark will NOT be read. MAKE SURE TO GIVE YOURSELF A GOOD AMOUNT OF TIME TO WRITE. This writing process takes a while and you do not want to do it on the last day before the deadline. Give yourself a month or more and plan out when you will do what. This makes sure you are not rushing, and no one does good when they are rushing.

Step 7. Revisions!

 Once your whole essay is written out and you are within 3800-4000 words, you can get to revising. Everyone knows that the first draft is not the best of your ability, and your essay can definitely use some adjustments. Make sure to ask family and friends to read over your Extended Essay and give you as much criticism as possible in order to make the best possible changes to your essay and make it as good as you can.