The Research Triangle
I wanted to share a model I've created for my Extended Essay students. And it's been working really well. In fact, all of my EE students got A's this year 🥳 🎉 and they found this framework helped them do that.
Below I'll run-through the model briefly, in a general way. If you want some more help, I would be very happy to talk it through with you.
If you're finding that your EE doesn't seem to be working, this model will help you diagnose the issue.
It's useful to think of the Research Question, the Tools and the Data as the 3 main elements when you develop your question and move toward your writing.
Great research works well when each of these elements align with each other. Every aspect needs to match with the other ones. When they do, once there is alignment between these 3 aspects, the writing and marks are much easier to achieve.
- Question + Data
- The question needs to match with the data you're able to find.
- Sometimes, if you're finding a lot of data on a certain aspect, consider slightly adjusting your question so you can focus on this data.
- Often, if you have a lot of good data on a topic there is the opportunity to narrow your topic (your question) --to focus just on a particular aspect of the bigger question. Generally, this is a good idea because then you can answer that narrower question in more depth.
- Tools + Question
- Use tools (various course concepts and approaches) which are clearly going to help you answer the question. I know this sounds obvious, but most students include sections which are interesting but either descriptive (not advancing the analysis) or analytical, but not providing insights that are relevant to the question.
- The question also needs to be answerable using tools from your course.
- Data + Tools
- Make sure that you're finding the data you need to take the approaches you want to.
- In subjects like Economics, Global Politics, and Business Management course tools often require very specific data (such as numbers for Econ diagrams and financial ratios). Sometimes it can be less obvious whether enough data is showing up for your tools to work, so you'll need to spend some time trying to find that data before you can tell if your question is going to work.
- Sometimes you'll need to use a different set of tools given the data you've been able to find. Again this, as with everything else, is something I'm really happy to talk through with you.
Tim is available for private tutoring, almost every day, to support you in writing your best essays. He's a fully IB-trained teacher and marker, with over 20 years of teaching experience. 🚀 Click here to meet with Tim on Zoom and talk through your work. 🚀
Tim helps students with IB Business Management, Theory of Knowledge, IB Global Politics, IB Economics, IB History, IB English IOs, IB Biology IAs and College Admissions essays.
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