Geography Extended Essay- Earthquake (Depth/Magnitude) HELP

[IB2013]

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Edited August 6, 2013 by IB2013

[thirdculturekid]

I think it'd be an interesting EE, but I from what I know it doesnt seem like the type of question/topic that would get you the highest grades. First, your question needs to be phrased differently. Right now that question would just have a yes or no answer, which means you probably won't be going deep enough with your analysis. Questions that start with "To what extent" or "in what ways" usually get better marks (like 'to what extent is there a correlation between the depth and magnitude of an earthquake'). I do feel that your topic is a bit vague though. Maybe see if you could relate it to the ring of fire or something? Some sort of case study, perhaps?

Although your topic is really geography-related, it doesn't perfectly fit in the 'IB Geo EE topics' mold (if that makes some sense!). The most successful geo EEs tend to be those that have primary data (so you go out and survey people, or measure something), and that way you can have a data presentation section to see whether there is a correlation or not between two or more variables. In your case, that isn't necessarily possible. However, I'd talk to your IB coordinator about it, because if you do get some secondary data, you could manipulate it and show graphing skills. I'm not too sure how that IB feels about that, though. Might be a bit risky! In some ways the EE is like the IA, since primary data is important, but for the EE it isn't everything. You also should have secondary data incorporated in.

With that I'll let you decide whether you want to carry on with your topic or not. Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions! Good luck!