IB Theory of Knowledge 3.1 the Essay at a Glance Notes

3.1 The essay at a glance

Six titles per session, externally assessed, 67% of the grade

1. The IB issues six prescribed titles for each examination session. You write one essay on one of them, and IB examiners mark it externally.
2. The submitted essay has to contain your reasoning. Something discussed in class supports your argument only when you state it and explain its relevance on the page.
3. The essay carries 67% of the TOK grade and the exhibition 33%. Both are marked out of 10, using a holistic assessment instrument for each task.
4. The prescribed titles are knowledge questions focused on areas of knowledge. For the exhibition, a theme is a strongly recommended starting point; for the essay, follow the chosen title's area-of-knowledge requirements.
5. The choice among the six is yours, and it constrains everything after it: which areas of knowledge you can argue through, which examples will count as support, and how many of your 1,600 words the title's own terms will consume.
6. Reproduce the chosen title exactly, including its punctuation. Check that it belongs to your examination session.

1,600 words and what that forces you to leave out

1. The maximum length is 1,600 words. Count the main essay and any quotations. Exclude acknowledgments, references, the bibliography, maps, charts, diagrams, annotated illustrations and tables. Use these exclusions for their intended purposes, rather than moving prose arguments out of the count.
2. Only the first 1,600 words are assessed. A conclusion sitting at word 1,720 is not read.
3. You are required to indicate the number of words when the essay is uploaded, so keep a running count as you write instead of meeting it for the first time at the end.
4. Follow the title's area-of-knowledge requirement and leave room to develop it. A tour of additional areas can use words you need for evidence, evaluation and sustained focus on the question.
5. The first thing to cut is preamble. A paragraph defining knowledge, a potted history of the discipline and a restatement of the title in your own words can run to several hundred words and answer nothing.
6. Extended footnotes and appendices are not appropriate for the TOK essay. Keep the argument inside the 1,600-word limit.
7. The essay is not primarily a research paper, but you are expected to use and acknowledge specific sources. References are excluded from the word count, so leaving a source uncited does not save counted words.

The PPF and its three recorded interactions

1. Three formal recorded interactions with your teacher are required for the essay, and they are recorded on the TOK essay Planning and Progress Form, the TK/PPF, which goes to the IB alongside the essay.
2. Their content is fixed: a discussion of the list of prescribed titles, a discussion of your initial exploration of the title you have chosen, and a comment on one draft of your essay.
3. The second one asks for something written. Your initial work has to be shared in written form, for example a set of notes and ideas that the discussion can then turn into a fuller plan, so arriving with an unwritten idea does not satisfy it.
4. The PPF is not used to determine the essay mark. It records support and helps establish that the essay is your own work, so completing it remains part of the submission process.
5. The final choice of title remains with you. Discuss the options with your teacher, then develop your own thinking and ideas.
6. The interactions follow the work: discussing the titles, discussing your written initial exploration, then receiving advice on one full draft. Confirm your school's dates so you can prepare for each stage.

Advice on one draft: your teacher may not mark or edit it

1. You are permitted to present one full draft of the essay. Your teacher should provide oral or written advice on how the work could be improved, and that advice may take the form of written comments of a global nature.
2. Your teacher is not permitted to mark or edit that draft. The advice can identify problems without assigning a mark or supplying rewritten sentences.
3. Global advice can address whether the argument holds together, where a reader lost the thread, and whether your examples support the claims they sit under.
4. Use the draft opportunity for a complete attempt at the essay. If an area-of-knowledge discussion is missing, your teacher cannot comment on how it works with the rest.
5. After that, no further written advice on drafts is permitted, though you may still ask about the appropriateness of a particular example or the clarity of a section of writing.
6. The next version handed to your teacher must be the final version for submission. Leave time to act on the draft advice before that deadline.

What transfers from the exhibition

1. The exhibition is designed for completion in the first year of the DP. Your school sets its assessment schedule, so check when the exhibition and essay stages fall for you.
2. The two tasks have different driving questions. The exhibition asks, "Does the exhibition successfully show how TOK manifests in the world around us?" The essay asks, "Does the student provide a clear, coherent and critical exploration of the essay title?"
3. Both tasks need support for their claims. The essay's Rudimentary band, 1–2, includes unsupported assertions; the exhibition descriptors also consider evidence. Explaining why a particular case supports a claim is a habit you can carry between them.
4. The tasks use specific material differently. In the exhibition you justify three objects' contributions to one prompt. In the essay you develop an argument about a prescribed title using examples appropriate to its areas of knowledge.
5. The paperwork differs too. The PPF and its three recorded interactions belong to the essay alone, so the essay is the task whose progress leaves a formal trail while you are still writing it.

What a first essay underestimates: the title, the dates, the one draft

1. A title sets the question and its constraints. Check the relationship it asks you to examine, rather than writing only about the topics it mentions.
2. Consider this constructed practice question for analysis, not a prescribed title: Is the reliability of a discipline's knowledge a matter of its methods or of its subject matter? It asks you to weigh two possible explanations of reliability.
3. The six titles are released six months before the submission deadline. Your school chooses a working window within that period, alongside your other commitments; check the dates rather than assuming you have six months to write.
4. Record your school's draft date and plan to meet it. A late or incomplete draft can leave less time for advice and revision.
5. Choosing a title early enough to explore examples gives you time to test the plan before drafting. Leave room to change direction if the evidence will not support your first idea.
6. Before committing, identify some specific examples and explain how they bear on the title. This is a planning test, not a required number of examples.

Submission dates and final checks

1. Confirm the submission deadline for your examination session with your school. Use the correct session's title sheet, not a practice question or a title from an earlier session.
2. The rest are set locally, so they vary from school to school. A date you have from a friend in another school, or from a document written for an earlier session, is not the one that governs your essay.
3. Record the dates for your written initial exploration, full draft and final version. These organise the work; an early planning date does not make your first idea irrevocable.
4. Declare the word count at upload and check the required presentation: standard 12-point type and double spacing. Leave time for trimming and file checks before the deadline.
5. Once the final version has been officially submitted, it cannot be retracted. Run your final checks before confirming it.