kingdomx Posted August 2, 2010 Report Share Posted August 2, 2010 Hi,So, the choosing of an extended essay topic and supervisor is about to start at my school.I am either doing mine on BAM or History, but I would prefer History, as I find it more interesting.I live in New Zealand, a very small country, which the IB examiners don't know much about.Should I do my topic on something to do with my country, which would mean spending more time researching, or should I take the easier option of choosing one of the overly done topics for IB History, and save my time, but risk boring the IB examiner?I would like to think that I am alright at History, I get around 13/20 for the essays and 16/20 for sources.I am near/at the top in my class for Year 1 IB History. My teacher says that I lack an argumentative approach in my essays. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cynthia Posted August 2, 2010 Report Share Posted August 2, 2010 (edited) Naturally if you make two extended essays of similar quality, one of which is on something overdone and one on something not overdone, the latter is likely to get a bit better marks. It does depend on how much motivation and time you have to spend on your Extended essay - I chose a topic on my home country as well (Finland) which is very rare so I am mainly doing primary research and I'm regretting it a bit now when I'm actually supposed to be doing it. The choice is yours, and you could also consider doing some less overdone aspect of the more popular topics.Btw, procrastinating on my EE right now... Edited August 2, 2010 by Cynthia 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kingdomx Posted August 3, 2010 Author Report Share Posted August 3, 2010 Naturally if you make two extended essays of similar quality, one of which is on something overdone and one on something not overdone, the latter is likely to get a bit better marks. It does depend on how much motivation and time you have to spend on your Extended essay - I chose a topic on my home country as well (Finland) which is very rare so I am mainly doing primary research and I'm regretting it a bit now when I'm actually supposed to be doing it. The choice is yours, and you could also consider doing some less overdone aspect of the more popular topics.Btw, procrastinating on my EE right now...Haha, lol, thanks for that. Yea, im thinking of doing something on America, which isn't a very popular choice, but I believe that there is still quite a bit of information on the country as a whole. Good luck with your EE !! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strummer Posted August 3, 2010 Report Share Posted August 3, 2010 I'm doing my History EE on the British Punk Movement and 1970s British politics, which is something I was previously interested in and had read about. I like to think my topic is a bit different and would be interesting to an examiner, but who knows maybe everyone does something like that. If you asked me to name a popular EE topic I doubt I could, and if I did it would have been luck. My advice would be to ultimately think about a question you are most interested in finding an answer to in a topic you have a genuine interest in. If you're going to be spending a lot of time on it then you might as well try and make it more enjoyable and interesting for you, rather than worry too much about whether it's popular or not. The chances are if you do that and give it some deep thought then it probably won't be a popular topic. Just think about something that you studied or have read about (or watched about) that really interested you, then do some research and I'm sure that potential questions will spring to mind.Someone did give me advice that it is a good idea to chose something different or local, as examiners like to learn something new etc. but at the end of the day if the essay is something you're really interested in it's likely to be a better essay, and a lot less painfull to write.You say your teacher says you lack an argumentative approach to your essays... In the essay I believe it's quite important to have an argumentative approach that looks at and evaluates different arguments about the question, and to not just come out with a narrative about the topic. As long as you bear this in mind and study the marking criteria you should be fine Or at least that's what I'm hoping for myself...I'm no expert though, and am currently working on my EE, which at the moment is far from perfect! 1 Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kingdomx Posted August 4, 2010 Author Report Share Posted August 4, 2010 I'm doing my History EE on the British Punk Movement and 1970s British politics, which is something I was previously interested in and had read about. I like to think my topic is a bit different and would be interesting to an examiner, but who knows maybe everyone does something like that. If you asked me to name a popular EE topic I doubt I could, and if I did it would have been luck. My advice would be to ultimately think about a question you are most interested in finding an answer to in a topic you have a genuine interest in. If you're going to be spending a lot of time on it then you might as well try and make it more enjoyable and interesting for you, rather than worry too much about whether it's popular or not. The chances are if you do that and give it some deep thought then it probably won't be a popular topic. Just think about something that you studied or have read about (or watched about) that really interested you, then do some research and I'm sure that potential questions will spring to mind.Someone did give me advice that it is a good idea to chose something different or local, as examiners like to learn something new etc. but at the end of the day if the essay is something you're really interested in it's likely to be a better essay, and a lot less painfull to write.You say your teacher says you lack an argumentative approach to your essays... In the essay I believe it's quite important to have an argumentative approach that looks at and evaluates different arguments about the question, and to not just come out with a narrative about the topic. As long as you bear this in mind and study the marking criteria you should be fine Or at least that's what I'm hoping for myself...I'm no expert though, and am currently working on my EE, which at the moment is far from perfect!Strummer, thank you very much for that long and thoughtful post.I am now keeping an open-mind.I love stuff about war, and am extremely interested in it.I may end up choosing that, over something that I am not interested in.Thanks again, oh and good luck with your EE !!! Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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