Human Rights subject report · May 2009

May 2009 extended essay reports Page 1 © International Baccalaureate Organization 2009 HUMAN RIGHTS Overall grade boundaries Grade: E D C B A Mark range: 0 - 7 8 - 15 16 - 22 23 - 28 29 - 36 General comments The range and suitability of the work submitted All of us who have evaluated extended essays about human rights agree that a great part of the works presented do not deal with this topic. We do not know the cause, but it is clear that this group of students have ignored the standards in the guide . It is difficult to find a good theoretical approach even in those works that perta in to the topic. Many believe that writing an extended essay about human rights simply consists of describing a violation of human rights, or an unfair or arbitrary situation, which is a big mistake. Candidate performance against each criterion A: research question Too many students have failed because they chose a topic not related to human rights. Even though human rights matters are many and varied, a full understanding of the topic is required to formulate a ny research question. International r elations, animal r ights, humanitarian international l aw, ethics, philosophy, constitutional l aw, bioethics: none of these is an appropriate topic for an extended essay about human rights. B: introduction Some students got the introduction mixed up with the abstract, and few gave it a title . In general, they did not comply with the requirements of an extended essay. C: investigation It