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Is it wise to start with EE in the first year?


THEliberator

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Well, my school mentioned the EE in the second Sem. We've started the process, but honestly, majority of the work is going to happen over the summer. Finishing your EE early gives you the advantage of having more time to make it better, or just chill. But honestly, if you finish it by the end of the summer, it should be fine

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Teachers say that completing the extended essay as soon as possible is a must, however seniors at my school think otherwise. Most of the seniors told me that it is better to wait till the end of first year so that you can putmore ideas and decide the topic.

 

I would agree more with the seniors at your school. See this discussion: http://www.ibsurvival.com/topic/31387-question-about-starting-ee/

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In my school we are asked to hand in our EE first draft one month before the end of first year. The thing is I don't really have time to produce a good quality essay as I have a lot of different work to do, including 2 IAs and revising for end of year exams. I think it is better to complete our first draft after the holiday.

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Yes particularly since you'd have more free time; however, I advise you to make sure your research question is 100% okay. I finished my extended essay, then had to redo it in and change my RQ in my second year because my initial supervisor left the school (the new supervisor was completely new to the school and didn't approve my RQ). 

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I would try do the bulk of the research required early on, and on that build a first draft. 

 

Depending on your subject, but that way you have a framework ready. You can then continue to fill it in over the summer and the second year as you grasp more concepts from the relevant course. 

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We are supposed to submit the rough drafts of our ee's less than in a week as it is some sort of a term project! I am only in the first year of dp oh lord give me some more time! Don't you guys think it could also be completed over summer? Why this pressure, why?

In my school we are asked to hand in our EE first draft one month before the end of first year. The thing is I don't really have time to produce a good quality essay as I have a lot of different work to do, including 2 IAs and revising for end of year exams. I think it is better to complete our first draft after the holiday.

I was in the same situation as you guys by the end of the year last year; sort of clueless, lack of motivation to complete anything, I also felt like the need to finish them quickly was none. So I just wrote a really basic thesis which sums up my thoughts about the topic and I also included some of the research I made at that time (which was too little). As summer went by, I kept revising my essay and still, I was procrastinating and lack of ideas and other of where to go. But as the new term started, our supervisor gave us a bunch of examples of thesis and research paper (related/similar to my approach of my EE), I started getting some ideas and it somehow drew a map in my mind, of what should I do and what should I include in my essay.

If you're lacking of motivation or too busy, it's better for you to just write your personal thoughts about your EE topic first, then do the same thing as I did. And yes, you still need to have a draft before holiday so that your supervisor can tell you what to do and not do in your essay. One of my schoolmate had to write a new EE, with different topic almost 2 weeks before the essay was supposed to be sent. Yes, 2 weeks, 4000 words of thesis for IB.

Hope this helped! :)

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Well yeah it would be advisable to write up your EE towards the end of the first year as you'll have a better idea what you'll be doing (you can develop some ideas more, etc.).. Then there's the summer where you'll have loads of time to finish it up and amend some things. You'll also have more time to edit it later :) Good luck with it!

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I think it depends on the subject a little bit. I did mine in chemistry, so it was better to do it in second year because we learned a lot of things that I could use and also different things I had to learn were made easier. I think that would also apply to physics and Maths. but if you doing a subject like History, English or a B language, then maybe you can start in the 1st year, because for them you dont have to learn new 'skills or tricks'. Of course you can make amendments and actually make them better until the second year. But in sciences, you will probably get stuck in learning new things on your own and will take more time.

 

In our school, we started EEs before summer and had to finish in August for first draft. Like I said, since I did mine in chem, we hadnt covered acid and bases and therefore it was quite difficult for me to use those concepts in my EE, since I actually had to do something which is a bit higher than IB acid and bases, but the rest like equilibrium and organic I could easily use because we had done them in class. 

 

Hope this makes sense :)

Edited by IBsurvivor2015May
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My school introduced the EE before I was even in the program (10th grade) and had us work on it that summer. I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. Frankly, I had no clue what I was doing for a while. It was only around the end of my junior year that I started getting things together. That said, I didn't even work on it until the very beginning of my senior year, with my school's deadline being in Ovotber! It was stressful, but I made it through a Chem EE (water quality in a nearby bay). I didn't work on it for two years like the teachers stresses and I'm still predicted an A. I wouldn't worry about it until later junior year and early senior year, because let's face it, not many of us will know what we want to do, how to do it, and get the motivation to complete it early!

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  • 4 weeks later...

Thank you guys, but now I need help on deciding the topic for my ee. As we all know getting an A in physics extended essay is no walk in the park. Yet I choose to do ee in physics. I have read the guide and it says that IB encourages simplistic experiments, but I want do something really great. So, guys please help me on this one!!!

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