EE introduction help:making topic seem worthy of investigating?

[ibprincess]

Hi,

 

One of the things I feel is holding my EE back is working out how to make my topic seem worthy of investigation. If any of you could give me advice on how you would recommend to do this or how you did this, I would appreciate that!! thanks!!!

[Emmi]

Basically how you do this is you briefly mention how your topic fits into something larger. For example, when I was writing my history EE I justified my topic by saying it was an important precursor to many World War II events and technologies and as such it was important to study, so that we could better understand the origins of one of the worst wars in history. Since you're doing a theater EE, think about things such as how theater is used to critique society, or how theater is used as a visual art form and why it's significant. I'm sure you can think of something that works.

[kw0573]

"seem worthy" is actually the key. "Seem worthy" is being marked mostly under research question, which is really about being specific yet allowing in-depth analysis. If your superviser approved you topic, then it has the capacity to score the 2/2 in Criterion A: RQ (aka does my question seem worthy of investigation). If your RQ has not been approved then maybe you need to back up and research about fine-tuning your RQ. If you have time you can also work backwards by first get some data/info collection then formulate your RQ.

Now investigation (criterion C) is about using "an imaginative range of appropriate sources". I think it was also around 3 and a half months before my exams (a month before my school's EE deadline) that I got something really creative for my data collection. This imaginative range of methods do not have to require a lot of efforts by you, they are just things people wouldn't really associate with this subject. For example I don't take Theatre. I imagine people get their data by maybe
1) participating in role-playing. to understand characters' thoughts. kinda like making connections
2) watching others act and writing down how you feel
3) finding papers on this topic
If you can find some way of gathering information or data using outside these stereotypical ways then you can score high on investigation. 

So really to do well on the EE you have first understand what IB look for in the markscheme then mold your paper to satisfy the expectations. We really can't tell you how to be imaginative, but i think in IB's perspective, try big and fail (ideally not to fail) is better then being safe and "succeed". It doesn't mean try something that you can't possibly do in 4000 words, it's just don't be confined by existing researches or methodologies.

[ebu]

Adding onto the suggestions above, you can kind of do that by:

 

- showing awareness of the current state of the field of study under investigation -> although this would be more to do with showing why your EE itself is important

- clearly and precisely locating the investigation in an academic context -> similar to what Emmi has mentioned I guess

 

Hope this helped!