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The Ultimate "OMG Help me with my EE" Thread

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Original post by Kevin.Krueg3r
I am a IB year 1 student and I have to choose a topic for my EE until the 12th December. I was planning on doing it in Computer Science and about a topic related to robotics if possible even to space exploration because I am very interested in it. However I am just starting to learn more about Robotics so I do not have a large knowledge in this field, which is why up to this point I was not able to narrow it down to a broad research question or even a more specific topic. It would be great if you had some ideas on specific topics I could do my EE about.



That's kind of the whole point of EE - to learn something new that you can, in the end, write an essay on. Your supervisor should help you whenever you need, so ask him/her about possible topics. Good luck and start writing early! I finally don't have to worry about it anymore! :smile:
(edited 9 years ago)
I'm thinking on doing my EE on English Lit, working with two texts and exploring how political ideologies are challenged in those works. Has anyone done an EE similar to that?
Help pleasee, btw I'll be focusing on a Russian Translated work, probably with marxism and the other set during a dictatorship or during the red scare
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by Streeej
Well my EE proposal was due 2 weeks ago and I'm still thoroughly lost. I'm pretty adamant on doing it on English Literature and I've chosen the books "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" and "The Stranger". I still don't have a research question or a clear idea on how to compare. Any ideas?


I Haven't read the first book but the second I've read. Maybe do it on how the works challenge the judicial system.
Original post by Maria da Penha
I'm thinking on doing my EE on English Lit, working with two texts and exploring how political ideologies are challenged in those works. Has anyone done an EE similar to that?
Help pleasee, btw I'll be focusing on a Russian Translated work, probably with marxism and the other set during a dictatorship or during the red scare


Hey! I *just* finalised my English Lit EE and handed it a couple of weeks ago!
Although I didn't study particularly similar text to yours (I studied the theme of death within selected works by the metaphysical poets), I do have some friendly advice! :smile:

Although your topic sounds really interesting (are you studying philosophy and/or gov/politics and history as well? ^_^), you need to make sure that your EE title will allow your essay to stay completely rooted within literary analysis. Contextual knowledge is important, but you don't want it to turn into a politics/social studies essay!
Original post by ilmk1997
Hey! I *just* finalised my English Lit EE and handed it a couple of weeks ago!
Although I didn't study particularly similar text to yours (I studied the theme of death within selected works by the metaphysical poets), I do have some friendly advice! :smile:

Although your topic sounds really interesting (are you studying philosophy and/or gov/politics and history as well? ^_^), you need to make sure that your EE title will allow your essay to stay completely rooted within literary analysis. Contextual knowledge is important, but you don't want it to turn into a politics/social studies essay!


I want to study PPE so I wanted my ee to able me to look into political philosophy. My English teacher said it was fine but maybe I'll look into the political ee's
Reply 1005
Hi, I'm thinking of doing my EE on Maths. Is it a bad idea? Or should I still go with it?
Original post by Maria da Penha
I'm thinking on doing my EE on English Lit, working with two texts and exploring how political ideologies are challenged in those works. Has anyone done an EE similar to that?
Help pleasee, btw I'll be focusing on a Russian Translated work, probably with marxism and the other set during a dictatorship or during the red scare


You seem to have everything figured out so far, but my only concern is that i think i read somewhere that you cannot use texts that were not originally written in English... I'm not certain about this, but i thought i should let you know just incase.
I'm interested in writing my EE on some kind of english topic, but I'm really clueless as to what topic i could pick.


I'm pretty interested in:
Feminism (this is probably my favourite out of these topics)
LGBT
Human rights
Rape culture
The impacts of society on young girls' body image

I'm completely stuck, and all i can find on these topics are things like the EE written on "The empowerment of the Feminine in JRR Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings" and "What role do women play in _____? " (etc...)

I haven't read many of the books in the criteria, and I'm much more into more modern YA fiction or fantasy books.
For example:
Anything written by John Green (Will Grayson, Will Grayson is what made me thing of LGBT as a topic)
The Mortal Instruments
Ender's Game
Divergent
The Host
Unwind
Harry Potter (although i've heard that this is a topic that does not get many high marks)

I was thinking of doing something that involves something like a comparison of 2 "feminist" books (one modern and one classic), or something to do with The lion, the witch, and the wardrobe, as it's considered to be literature, although more modern.
I think you seem to know what you're doing, but the only problem is i think there's a rule about only using texts that were originally written in English... I'm not entirely sure, but i thought i should let you know just incase.
Original post by talktothehalo
I'm interested in writing my EE on some kind of english topic, but I'm really clueless as to what topic i could pick.


I'm pretty interested in:
Feminism (this is probably my favourite out of these topics)
LGBT
Human rights
Rape culture
The impacts of society on young girls' body image

I'm completely stuck, and all i can find on these topics are things like the EE written on "The empowerment of the Feminine in JRR Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings" and "What role do women play in _____? " (etc...)

I haven't read many of the books in the criteria, and I'm much more into more modern YA fiction or fantasy books.
For example:
Anything written by John Green (Will Grayson, Will Grayson is what made me thing of LGBT as a topic)
The Mortal Instruments
Ender's Game
Divergent
The Host
Unwind
Harry Potter (although i've heard that this is a topic that does not get many high marks)

I was thinking of doing something that involves something like a comparison of 2 "feminist" books (one modern and one classic), or something to do with The lion, the witch, and the wardrobe, as it's considered to be literature, although more modern.


Hi!
I wrote my Extended Essay in English literature this fall. Wanting to write about the portrayal of women in literature I chose to write about female agency in the Twilight series, specifically focusing on Bella Swan. I wrote about whether or not she is a fully realized actor driving the narrative, the male gaze, the implications of her femininity, her sexual agency, her paternalistic relationships with the men in her life, and how she gained agency through transforming into a vampire etc.

What I would suggest is that you try to be as specific as possible with your topic. If choosing to write about Narnia, what specifically would be of interest? YA may be a double-edged sword, because on one hand there is a lot less scholarly analysis on it so it can be a really fascinating thing to study, but on the other hand, you might have to be more specific in order to "prove" that it's of sufficient literary merit to study it. E.g. exploring the theme of female oppression in A Handmaid's Tale might be more instantly accessible than writing a generalized account of women in [insert YA novel here]. Is there anything in particular in the works that you've read that gets your feminist senses tingling? A theme or symbol or motif? A trope or a specific character role? A narrative that's present in other works? Is the novel subverting traditional portrayals of women in a specific way? That might make it easier for you to narrow down the field.

I'd say the same thing about comparing two novels. It's a good idea, but it will probably be best if you choose why you want to compare the two works beyond "I want to see how they present women". Do they have anything in common? Are they representing two drastically different ideas? Or versions of a trope? Is there a reason beyond "This was written in 2010 and this in 1910" as to why they should be compared?

Regarding what you heard about Harry Potter as an essay topic, I can't say for certain whether that's true or not. However, I had similar worries when choosing my topic as Twilight is rarely considered the pinnacle of modern literature. My English teacher told me that though the EE examples provided by the IB are likely to be on more "traditional" works, that may be a strategic move to reign students in a bit with regards to choosing topics that are way off. Providing students with a sample exploring "Jane Austen's use of the outdoors in Emma" would keep students focused on the literary analysis. One of the students who graduated from my school last year wrote about Harry Potter and I believe she got a good mark, though I don't know the exact grade.

As long as you don't choose to write about the Star Wars novelizations and explore and analyze the subject effectively, I think you'll do fine. Obviously, there should be enough to draw from within the work to warrant the essay, so you might want to take some time to jot down a few ideas as to what you'd actually explore in each novel you're considering.

There may be something in renunciation of femininity common in YA fantasy fiction (e.g. THG) or empowerment of women through the supernatural rather than pure physical strength (TMI and TID, HP etc.) but I don't know. Try to mind map some ideas about each work you're considering!

*With all of this, your mileage may vary. I'm not an English teacher and certainly not an IB examiner.

Good luck though! Choosing an essay topic you're interested is generally a good starting point for a successful EE - the guy who wrote a 4000 word essay on nuclear energy probably had a worse time than me, even if I did have to read what felt like 150 mentions of Edward's "bronze hair" and how he looked like "an Adonis". :rolleyes:
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by talktothehalo
You seem to have everything figured out so far, but my only concern is that i think i read somewhere that you cannot use texts that were not originally written in English... I'm not certain about this, but i thought i should let you know just incase.

You can, but it's a different category essay than writing about solely a novel written in English.

From the IB Extended Essay guide:

"Category 1: Studies of a literary work(s) originally written in the language in which the essay is presented"


and

"Category 2: Studies of a literary work(s) originally written in the language of the essay compared with a literary work(s) originally written in another language"

(Emphasis mine). Then there's category 3 for language studies.
Original post by talktothehalo
You seem to have everything figured out so far, but my only concern is that i think i read somewhere that you cannot use texts that were not originally written in English... I'm not certain about this, but i thought i should let you know just incase.


I've decided to do three sisters from Chekhov and A Streetcar Named desire by Tennessee Williams, since I'm doing the A2 it's okay.
Hey I am doing my Extended Essay in Geography. I want to do something to do with gender inequality in different classes and workforces. So maybe looking at two European countries- England and France. I would love any ideas that people have on the subject and weather or not it would be a good one to do?
I thought this thread was about the phone network . . .

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Reply 1014
Starting the EE process now and I need to think of a topic. I was thinking Histo but not sure about my q

I was thinking of

"How do initially small parties manage to grow into large and dominant groups?"
and then talking about
Nazi Germany
Mao’s China

Thoughts? Advice? Thanks!!!
I am considering doing my EE on a text such as Ovid's Metamorphoses or a Play such as Antigone.
Would a question like this be an English Lit question or a Latin/Greek one? Would a question such as "how are women presented in Metamorphoses" be viable?
Despite gcse Latin I have neither the desire nor the ability to work with the text in its original form - would this count against me?
Failing this could I do an essay such as "literature loses it's power in translation" arguing both the power of the morals etc but the loss of the features of rhetoric (e.g alliteration etc etc) based around a passage from such a text
Thanks in advance
(edited 9 years ago)
Hi guys,

I am going to be starting the IB this coming fall, so I've started thinking about my EE topic. I'm taking history SL as one of my subjects, and am very interested in the subject of law. Would this be a suitable topic: The Ties Between Law and Morality with a Focus on the Slave Trade.

I was thinking about this because we've been studying the slave trade at school, and it was rather interesting how the slavery of certain peoples was condemned more because it was illegal than because people viewed it as "immoral".

Help please?

Thanks!
Reply 1017
Original post by rofflewaffle
Your doing english and you can't spell poor? That's the only way I can help.


You're not your. Physician, heal thyself!
Hi!
My question is about a History EE and mainly about the chronology (the 10 years rule). My research question is something around "To what extent did the british coloniser's 'divide and rule' policy lead to the independence of south sudan?"
So the Independence of South Sudan happened in 2011, but I want to focus my EE on events which happened up to January of 2005.
Will it work out?
Please help and thank you!
(edited 8 years ago)
How does this question sound: how successful was Jeannette Rankin in her activism? Should I do "to what extent" instead of "how"?

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