IB Theory of Knowledge 2.8 Coaching Within the Rules: What Guidance Is Allowed Notes

2.8 Coaching within the rules: what guidance is allowed

The support you can receive

1. Your exhibition must be your own work, and you can receive support from your teacher during planning and preparation. Seeking guidance does not make the work less yours.
2. Your teacher may provide feedback on one draft of the exhibition. Plan to use that opportunity while there is still time to consider the advice and revise the work yourself.
3. Ask your teacher for advice and information when you need it. You must not be penalised for seeking guidance, and early questions can help you understand the task before you commit to objects.
4. You should receive an explanation of the task and become familiar with the assessment instrument. Ask about any requirement or descriptor you do not understand.
5. Authorship concerns who developed the work and wrote the commentary. A discussion can help you think without supplying the analysis or sentences you submit.

Oral or written advice on one draft

1. Use the draft discussion to understand what needs improvement. For example, ask where a link is unexplained or which claim lacks support, so you know what to investigate in revision.
2. Advice may be oral or written. Talking through comments on the same draft does not create permission for feedback on a second draft; agree how the advice will be given with your teacher.
3. Follow your school's draft schedule. Aim for a complete version that shows your objects, contexts, links and justifications, so the advice can address the exhibition you intend to submit.
4. The assessment driving question is "Does the exhibition successfully show how TOK manifests in the world around us?" Ask about your objects, links and supporting evidence with that whole exhibition in view.
5. Consider advice rather than applying it mechanically. If you disagree, examine your reasons and the relevant evidence. The submitted explanation must remain your own, while still meeting the task's requirements.

The line between advising and editing

1. Advice identifies a problem or area for improvement; editing changes the draft's text. Comments can accompany your draft, but your teacher may not rewrite its sentences for you.
2. Ask whether the feedback helps you make your own revision or supplies wording and analysis to insert. The first supports your work; the second risks making someone else a co-author of the commentary.
3. Trimming to 950 words is where advice most easily turns into editing. Telling you that your second commentary runs long and carries the thinnest justification of the three is advice; cutting the passage that gets you under the limit is editing.
4. Your teacher can identify incomplete referencing and explain citation conventions. You remain responsible for checking the sources you used and supplying accurate citations and references.
5. If a draft comes back with rewritten sentences, discuss the problem with your teacher before using them. Retyping someone else's wording does not make it your own; the submitted commentary needs to reflect your own writing and understanding.

One round of advice, then the next version you hand in is final

1. After feedback on the draft, the next version handed to your teacher must be the final version for submission. You can revise it yourself in the meantime; you cannot submit another draft for another round of feedback.
2. A draft missing one of the three objects gives your teacher an incomplete view. Try to include all three commentaries, even where an explanation still needs development, and note the parts you are unsure about.
3. The one-draft limit does not prevent you from revising independently. General questions and clarification can still support your work, within the boundary against repeated draft feedback or editing.
4. Once you officially submit the final version, it cannot be retracted. Check with your school which hand-in constitutes that official submission and review the file before confirming it as final.
5. The round is therefore worth using while there is still room to act on it. Advice you cannot work through before the file becomes final is advice you have heard rather than used.

Questions that help without crossing the line

1. Ask whether each object is identifiable as a particular thing and whether its context is sufficiently explained. If it reads as a generic type, ask which information is missing rather than asking your teacher to choose a replacement.
2. The Excellent band, 9–10, describes links as "clearly made and well-explained". Ask where your teacher had difficulty following a link, then investigate the missing reasoning yourself.
3. Ask whether any of your justifications repeat the same contribution. The Basic band, 3–4, includes "significant repetition across the justifications of the different objects"; a reader may notice repetition you have overlooked.
4. Ask which claims need support. The Excellent band, 9–10, asks for points "well-supported by appropriate evidence and explicit references to the selected IA prompt". Your teacher can identify a gap without providing your argument or evidence for you.
5. Ask about the prompt's meaning during planning if you are unsure. Its wording must remain exactly as given, and a misunderstanding is easier to address before three commentaries are drafted.

Feedback that reads as co-authorship

1. Your school may compare the writing with other work you have produced when checking authenticity. Keep the commentary in your own voice and be able to explain the reasoning behind it.
2. Each student must create an individual exhibition; group work on the assessed exhibition is not permitted. Discussing ideas or showing work for authorised feedback is different from jointly writing the commentary or dividing its authorship among classmates.
3. Classmates may choose the same prompt, but students in the same TOK class may not use any of the same objects. Check object choices with your teacher while keeping your analysis and writing individual.
4. Your teacher may discuss the content with you to check authenticity. Be prepared to explain how the objects connect to the prompt and where your supporting information came from.
5. Help from a tutor, sibling or text generator must not replace your own analysis and writing. Do not submit polished commentary supplied by someone or something else as if you wrote it.

Keeping a record of your work

1. Your initial proposal, first draft and references may be used to check authenticity. Keeping them is a useful record of how your exhibition developed. There is no required Planning and Progress Form for the exhibition.
2. Save the version you handed to your teacher as its own file rather than editing over it. What separates that version from the one you submit is the record of your own revision.
3. Keep your object shortlist and brief reasons for changes if that helps record your thinking. This is practical recordkeeping, not an additional assessed submission requirement.
4. Reference each image as you insert it. If an object is your own original work, identify and acknowledge it as yours as well.
5. Before official submission, you must confirm that the work is authentic and final. Check the file itself, including its references, rather than relying only on the fact that you kept earlier drafts.