Extended Essay (EE)

Sounds straightforward. It rarely is.

You pick a topic, develop a research question, spend roughly 40 hours investigating, write 4,000 words, and submit. The assessment covers five criteria: how focused your question is, how well you understand your subject, how critically you examine your evidence, how you structure and present it, and how engaged you are with the work itself.

In theory, simple. In practice, almost no student gets through without hitting walls.

The Five Assessment Criteria

Criterion A: Focus and Method Your research question is clear and specific. You explain how you'll investigate it and stick to that plan throughout.

Criterion B: Knowledge and Understanding You demonstrate command of your subject area—using accurate terminology, relevant concepts, and evidence that actually supports what you're arguing.

Criterion C: Critical Thinking You don't just report what you found. You analyze it. You question it. You compare sources. You build an argument, not a summary.

Criterion D: Presentation Your essay is organized, well-written, and properly cited. The reader can follow your thinking.

Criterion E: Engagement You're genuinely invested in your research question and the process of answering it. This comes through in your work.

Where Students Actually Get Stuck

Narrowing to a real research question. "How does Russian literature reflect society?" is a starting point, not a question. You need something answerable in 4,000 words. "How do Dostoevsky's protagonists respond to moral ambiguity?" works. This takes time to get right.

Finding and evaluating sources. You'll find articles that seem perfect, then contradict each other. Others are unreliable. Learning to separate credible research from weak sources is part of the work. It's also where students lose weeks.

Building an argument instead of summarizing. Lots of essays read like annotated reading lists: "X argues this, Y argues that, Z disagrees." But where are you? What's your position? Most students don't realize they have one until someone asks them directly.

Maintaining your focus under pressure. Halfway through research, you might need to reshape your question. That's normal. But it feels like failure. And you're juggling this alongside your other DP subjects, which also demand research and writing.

Owning the work. This essay has to be genuinely yours. Not synthesized, not inspired by someone else's argument, not written with heavy scaffolding from a tutor. That independence is harder than it sounds. It's also what makes it valuable.