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What Is An Extended Essay – Basic Structure And Formatting Tips

Have you been given the task of writing an extended essay, but you are not sure what it is, and how to write it? Before you begin writing or even researching material for a piece that you are not familiar with, it’s best to understand how to write it first. Read on for info on what an extended essay is, and how to structure one properly.

What Is An Extended Essay

An extended essay is one of the core components of a IB Diploma Program. It’s basically a research paper that requires a word count of around 4,000. It’s designed to give the students of a program an opportunity to research and delve deeper into a topic that they find of interest to them. The extended essay is an important piece of the curriculum, and therefore students are encouraged to take it seriously.

Structure And Formatting Tips

Make sure that your essay uses the correct citation system. Every time you use a fact, or an idea that has been derived from a study reference it. The typical citation methods to use are MLA and APA formatting. These are very easy to use and information on how they are implemented can be found online. The educational bodies marking the extended essays are very strict regarding plagiarism. That’s why you have to be very careful regarding how you use the citations.

Here is a list of what components an extended essay should contain, and what to include within them:

• Title page: firstly, the title page is not the same thing as the title of the essay. It should be a quarter of the way down the page and include your name, extended essay final draft, name of advisor, TOK teacher, word count and date.
• Abstract: this is an outline of the essay, it should contain no more than 300 words and must be written in third person.
• Page numbers: use the insert function to add page number to all the pages apart from the title page.
• Table of contents: this should include all the sections of the essay and the page numbers that they occupy.
• Introduction: this is used to introduce the topic, and then name the specific question that the essay is examining.
• Body: this section is the largest and is used to dissect the question of the topic.
• Conclusion: this section sums up the analysis of the question, and what related areas were left unresolved.