Write an extended essay proposal that supports a decision
Explain the question, evidence, method and first research steps in a concise working proposal.
Find out what your school needs
A proposal is a planning tool whose format and deadline are set by your school. Obtain the requested headings and length before building an elaborate document. Its purpose is to make your intended investigation understandable enough for a useful discussion. It does not need to imitate the finished essay. Record your assessment session, proposed subject or pathway, working question and supervisor arrangements. Label uncertain details honestly so the proposal invites decisions about real issues rather than presenting guesses as settled requirements.
Explain the problem and its boundaries
Describe what you want to find out and why the question interests you. Then state the limits: place, period, text, sample, mechanism or comparison. Explain why those boundaries create an answerable investigation. Avoid beginning with a page of general background that never identifies the puzzle. A reader should be able to distinguish your research question from the broader topic after one paragraph. If a key term carries several meanings, write the working meaning you plan to use and explain how evidence will relate to it.
Show the evidence and method together
List a small number of sources or resources you have genuinely inspected. For each, explain its role: establishing context, providing data, offering a competing interpretation or enabling close analysis. Outline what you will do with the evidence. 'Research online' is an activity, not a method. A useful account might explain how passages will be selected and compared, how a model will be tested, or how historical explanations will be assessed. Include practical access issues and seek school approval before any activity needing safety or ethical oversight.
Try a worked proposal extract
For an illustrative history idea, a student proposes investigating how local newspaper coverage represented a particular strike during a defined six-month period. The evidence section identifies two accessible newspaper archives and notes a gap in the surviving issues. The method compares recurring descriptions, separates news reports from editorials and places them alongside contextual scholarship. The next action is to sample one week from each archive. This extract lets a supervisor discuss source balance and scope; a sentence promising to 'research the strike thoroughly' would offer much less.
Include a risk and a fallback
Identify the uncertainty most likely to block the investigation. It may be inaccessible sources, insufficient variation in data or a comparison that is too large. Explain the test that will resolve it and a reasonable fallback. A fallback should preserve the disciplinary aim while narrowing the task, rather than switching to an unrelated topic at the first difficulty. Set milestones in terms of outputs: source sample, pilot result, provisional argument and draft. Mark school dates separately from the target dates you set yourself.
Revise the proposal after the conversation
Bring two or three questions that require judgment, and take notes on the decisions reached. Update the brief while the reasons are fresh. Keep an earlier version so you can trace how the focus developed. Approval to explore a direction does not mean the question must never change; research can reveal a better boundary or method. When you revise it, explain the evidence for the change. A good proposal becomes a compact reference for the work ahead, with a clear first action you can begin immediately.
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Official references
This is an original practical guide from IBvia. The examples are illustrative; your subject guide, assessment year and school instructions determine the requirements.
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Check your extended essay idea before committing
Test scope, source access and research methods so your EE question has a realistic route to an answer.
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Follow an extended essay from question to submission
Build a sequence of research decisions, useful drafts and final checks for an independent essay.
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