The Student Room Group

Where does the EPQ source table fit into the whole project?

I'm in the process of doing my EPQ and I'm aware that I have to show evidence of evaluating the sources I use. We've been given a source table to fill out and have been asked to hand it in at the same time that we hand in our final essay.

I'm really confused because our teachers have been really vague about the whole thing. Is the source table marked as part of the project? Do I need to evaluate the sources in the essay as well? Do I evaluate them in my log book when deciding what changes I'm going to make? Should I include the sources which I decided not to use in the end?

Any help would be very much appreciated as I would hate to do badly because I missed out something easy. Thank you!
I have completed the EPQ last year as part of early entry and I’ll answer your questions:
- everything is marked - they’re not making you do anything just for the fun of it
- you do not need to evaluate all your sources in the essay but if you do evaluate some you’ll get higher marks as it shows you’re thinking critically
- your ‘changes’ section focusses on what things you’ve changed since the start of your plan. For example I had to remove a section as I spent much more words on my other sections and realised they were more important in my overall investigation/essay than the section I decided to remove
- you can include the sources you decided not to remove at the end of its significant and you can justify why you decided not to use them

Hope this helps!
Reply 2
I found the way I used my EPQ log to be very useful (useful enough for an A*!). Basically, you should be gathering evidence from multiple sources like journals, books, websites, videos (all credible ofc). You put them into your source table, and make a note of what's useful/if you agree and evaluate it. You then use your notes from this to write your essay and cite them in your essay (important so that you don't end up accidentally plagiarising!). Keep all of the sources you find in the table because you it will show off all of the research you have done. Your project log is marked as well as your essay, and you can get a lot of marks from this- so evaluating how your project changed and showing that in your table can get you marks. Your EPQ is submitted as your essay, production log and any other resources you used to help you with your project (like gantt charts). Hope this helps!
Reply 3
Original post by Twittwoooo
I have completed the EPQ last year as part of early entry and I’ll answer your questions:
- everything is marked - they’re not making you do anything just for the fun of it
- you do not need to evaluate all your sources in the essay but if you do evaluate some you’ll get higher marks as it shows you’re thinking critically
- your ‘changes’ section focusses on what things you’ve changed since the start of your plan. For example I had to remove a section as I spent much more words on my other sections and realised they were more important in my overall investigation/essay than the section I decided to remove
- you can include the sources you decided not to remove at the end of its significant and you can justify why you decided not to use them

Hope this helps!

Thank you!
Reply 4
Original post by medbear
I found the way I used my EPQ log to be very useful (useful enough for an A*!). Basically, you should be gathering evidence from multiple sources like journals, books, websites, videos (all credible ofc). You put them into your source table, and make a note of what's useful/if you agree and evaluate it. You then use your notes from this to write your essay and cite them in your essay (important so that you don't end up accidentally plagiarising!). Keep all of the sources you find in the table because you it will show off all of the research you have done. Your project log is marked as well as your essay, and you can get a lot of marks from this- so evaluating how your project changed and showing that in your table can get you marks. Your EPQ is submitted as your essay, production log and any other resources you used to help you with your project (like gantt charts). Hope this helps!

Thank you so much!

Quick Reply