Extended Essay guide: how to write an IB EE, from choosing a subject to the viva

An IB Extended Essay (EE) is a research essay of up to 4,000 words on a question you choose and answer yourself, in one DP subject or, from May 2027, in two subjects combined. You spend about 40 hours on it, meet your supervisor for 3 to 5 hours across three reflection sessions (the last is a short interview called the viva voce), and submit the essay together with a reflective statement of up to 500 words. To write a good one, pick a subject you can get real evidence in, narrow the question until 4,000 words can answer it properly, and build the essay as an argument rather than a report of what you read.

What is the Extended Essay, in numbers?

The word count covers your introduction, main body, conclusion and quotations. It does not cover the contents page, headers, tables, charts, diagrams, equations and calculations, citations and reference footnotes, the bibliography or the RPF. How those 30 marks turn into points with TOK is explained in how IB scoring works.

How do you choose a subject and a supervisor?

Choose the subject where you can ask a narrow question you actually care about and get evidence to answer it. For most students that is a subject they take, often at HL, because the background reading and the subject's methods are already familiar. Your school may have its own rules about which subjects are offered for the EE. The full decision, with the traps in each subject, is in which subject to choose for your EE.

Your supervisor must be a suitably qualified member of staff at your school. You can have an outside mentor, such as a university researcher, but your school supervisor keeps every formal responsibility. A supervisor:

• holds the three reflection sessions with you and records them on the RPF;
• reads and comments on one complete draft, without editing it;
• checks that your research meets ethical, safety and legal standards;
• receives your final version before the viva and confirms afterwards that it is your own work;
• submits a predicted EE grade to the IB.

In your first conversation, ask three things: what your school's internal deadlines are, when they want the single draft, and how they like to be contacted between sessions.

What does a realistic EE timeline look like?

Every school sets its own internal deadlines, so treat this as the typical shape for a May exam session, not a rule. If you sit in November, shift it by about six months.

The date that matters most is the draft. Your supervisor reads only one, so a half-finished draft wastes the only feedback you get. Hand in something complete, even if parts are rough. The other trap is the summer: if data collection slips into Year 2, it collides with IAs in every subject. The IB Diploma timeline shows where the EE sits next to everything else.

How should you research your EE?

Research means primary evidence (data you collect, or original documents and texts) and secondary evidence (what other people have written about it). The balance depends on the subject.

What typically goes wrong in each subject is covered in which subject to choose for your EE.

Whatever the subject, keep a research log from day one: what you read, what you tried, what failed and why you changed course. The IB recommends a Researcher's Reflection Space for this. It isn't assessed, but it is where your reflective statement and your viva answers will come from. For judging sources and setting out references, the habits in finding and evaluating sources apply equally to the EE.

How should the essay be structured?

Every EE needs a title page, a contents page, an introduction that states the research question and why it is worth answering, a body, a conclusion that answers the question, and a bibliography. There is no longer a separate presentation criterion: structure and presentation are now marked within criterion A, alongside the research question and methods. Inside that frame, structure follows the subject.

Experimental sciences

Background, research question and hypothesis, methodology (variables, controls, apparatus, safety and ethics), results with processed data and graphs, analysis, discussion and evaluation, conclusion. Raw data can go in an appendix, but the processed data the argument depends on belongs in the body. The analysis habits from the IA carry straight over: see statistical tests and uncertainties.

Humanities and social sciences

Sections built around the steps of your argument, not around your sources. Each section makes a claim, supports it with evidence, and deals with the strongest objection. A History essay asking whether economic grievances caused the Kronstadt rebellion of 1921 might run: the economic case, the political case, what the timing of events shows, and a judgement.

Literature

Thematic or technique-based sections that build one interpretation, with close reading of short quotations. Chapter-by-chapter plot summary is the commonest structural mistake.

Mathematics

Definitions and notation first, then the development of the mathematics, then its application or the result, then a conclusion that says what has been shown and its limits. Equations don't count towards the word limit, but the explanation around them does, and it is what makes the mathematics readable.

What happens in the reflection sessions and the viva?

You have three mandatory reflection sessions with your supervisor: a first session once you have a direction, an interim session in the middle of the research, and the viva voce, a short concluding interview after you have handed in the final version. Criterion E (4 marks) is marked only on your reflective statement on the RPF, and a missing statement scores 0. Keep notes after every session: the statement is written at the end, and it has to explain decisions you will otherwise have forgotten. What to bring to each session, sample extracts and typical viva questions are in EE reflection and the viva voce.

How do academic integrity and AI rules apply?

The IB does not ban AI tools, but it does not treat anything an AI produced, even in part, as your work. If AI-generated text, images or graphs appear in your EE, you must mark them clearly, cite them in the body of the essay with quotation marks, include the prompt you used and the date, and list them in the bibliography. Presenting AI-written text as your own is academic misconduct, and the EE guide says so directly.

Uses that keep you on the right side of the line:

• asking an AI tool to suggest search terms, databases or methods, then checking every claim against a real source;
• asking it to explain a concept you have met in your reading;
• asking it whether a research question is too broad, then making the decision yourself.

The real safeguard is the process. Your supervisor has seen your work develop, reads your draft, and talks to you in the viva. If you can explain every choice in the essay, authentication is easy. The final version is handed in before the viva and cannot change afterwards. More on what's allowed: how to use AI in the IB without crossing the line.

Why do Extended Essays end up in the bottom bands?

Markers mark positively, and the top band does not require a flawless essay. Essays sink when something goes wrong early in the process and nothing later can repair it:

1. The question was never narrowed. "How has climate change affected coral reefs?" needs a book. Broad questions produce description, and description cannot be analysed or evaluated in depth. See EE research question examples for what a focused one looks like.
2. Data or reading slipped into Year 2. The draft is then rushed, and the one round of supervisor feedback lands on half an essay.
3. The essay was written source by source. Paragraphs that report what each source says, one after another, show reading but no argument, and the conclusion ends up summarising instead of judging.
4. It was cut to length at the last minute, or not at all. At 4,600 words, the conclusion sits in the part examiners don't read.
5. No notes were kept. The reflective statement is then written the night before from memory, and its four marks go with it.
6. The subject drifted. A "Chemistry" essay that ends up mostly about nutrition policy, or an "Economics" essay with no economic theory, is hard to reward under knowledge and understanding.

What each criterion rewards, with wrong-versus-right examples and a checklist to run before you submit, is in the EE criteria explained.

What if you are submitting in November 2026?

November 2026 is the last session on the old model. The essay is still 4,000 words with three reflection sessions ending in the viva, but it is marked out of 34 on different criteria (A Focus and method, B Knowledge and understanding, C Critical thinking, D Presentation, E Engagement), and your reflections go on the RPPF, up to 500 words across all three. World studies still exists as its own option for you. Follow your supervisor's copy of the old criteria, and treat anything online that mentions "30 marks" or "Framework" as not applying to you.