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TOK Essay - should one explicitly state the knowledge question (derived from title) that one is writing about?


Intuition

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Title says it all.

 

I am very confused, and I think I have gone through all the TOK resources I could find. If not I am wrong, I did ask my teacher about it, but quite honestly - I forgot what he said. Whatever he said, it was with some uncertainty. 

 

So now am I unsure.

Most places I read that I am supposed to take the title - derive a few 'knowledge questions' from the title, and write arguments and counter-arguments for those questions. And you have all this stuff about AOK and WOK... I think I have understood that part too.

 

Anyways, do I include, explicitly, the KQ in the essay? Should I stick to one, or write about all 2-3? Would I put them in the introduction, or on the top in their respective main paragraph?

 

Appreciate any help!  :surrender:  :eek:

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You have some options, and it depends on your own personal writing style.

 

You need to title your essay as the prescribed title you're writing to. I'd also included it in the intro just to be safe.

 

I explicitly wrote my derived KQs as they showed up in the progression of my essay. Since both criteria are all about KQs, I think it's very important to say them explicitly so as to not risk the examiner missing one. A question mark makes it pretty obvious :)

 

But, in theory, the examiner should be able to figure it out if you write your essay well enough. It's just safer to say it explicitly, like in all IB classes.

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I did not explicitly state my KQ (is that what they call KI in the new syllabus? Sorry I'm not too up to date) as a form of a question in my essay. It's probably due to the nature of the title I was answering. My title showed 2 sides of an issue, so in my introduction I just wrote something along the lines of agreeing with the statement, and then another sentence of however it is questionable if that is true. So I suppose this is another way one can write it if framing it as a question becomes jarring to the overall flow of your essay.

 

You should make clear your main knowledge question (whether in the form of a question or a statement) but don't really need to explicitly state all your sub knowledge questions. 1600 words is really not a lot. If you are doing the essay properly (in a TOK  manner), sub knowledge questions surface naturally along the course of your essay and examiners can see that your essay is answering any questions that surfaced, whether or not you stated the questions explicitly or not.

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