IB Theory of Knowledge 3.9 the 1,600 Words and the Formal Requirements Notes

3.9 The 1,600 words and the formal requirements

What counts towards the limit and what does not

1. The maximum length of the essay is 1,600 words, and the count covers the main part of the essay together with any quotations you use.
2. A forty-word quotation uses forty words of the limit. Paraphrase where the precise wording is unnecessary, while preserving the source's meaning and acknowledging it.
3. The count excludes acknowledgements, and it excludes the references and bibliography, whether those references are given in footnotes, endnotes or in-text.
4. It also excludes maps, charts, diagrams, annotated illustrations and tables. The exclusion covers the object on the page and not the sentences you write around it.
5. Keep your argument in the main text. Extended footnotes and appendices are not appropriate for the TOK essay.
6. You are required to indicate the number of words when the essay is uploaded, so the count is something you declare rather than something worked out for you.
7. Write the essay in standard 12-point type and use double spacing.

Citation and referencing in a TOK essay

1. Use and acknowledge specific sources for the examples and ideas you draw on.
2. Replace vague references to what scientists in general think with an identifiable claim and source. A broad statement still needs support; vagueness does not remove the need to acknowledge borrowed ideas.
3. The form of the reference is open. References given in footnotes, endnotes or in-text are all treated identically by the word count, so the choice is about readability.
4. Use a consistent referencing convention so a reader can identify each source. Ask your school which style it recommends.
5. What a reference does in a TOK essay is let a reader check the case an argument was built on. A claim whose source cannot be located is a claim the reader has to take on your word.
6. Reference as you draft rather than afterwards. Reconstructing where a figure came from three weeks later is how a specific example decays into a general one, and the general version supports less.

The title reproduced exactly, and why it is checked

1. Reproduce the chosen title exactly as issued at the head of your essay, including the instruction about areas of knowledge.
2. Altering includes tidying. Changing a semicolon, dropping the second half of a two-part title, or swapping in a word you prefer are all alterations of the title you were set.
3. If a title has been modified but it stays clear which prescribed title it refers to, the essay is marked against that prescribed title, and any loss of relevance caused by the modification shows in the result.
4. An essay that does not respond to one of the prescribed titles for the correct examination session falls within the 0 level of the assessment instrument.
5. Your essay is assessed for a clear, coherent and critical exploration of the title. Check that the discussion answers its full question.
6. Restating the title in your own words inside the introduction carries a quieter version of the same risk. If the restatement drifts, the essay starts answering a question nobody set, and the drift widens paragraph by paragraph.

Submission mechanics and the PPF

1. Three interactions with your teacher are built into the essay as requirements, and the TOK essay Planning and Progress Form is where they are logged as they happen.
2. The first is a discussion of the list of prescribed titles. The final choice of title remains yours, and you are expected to develop your own thinking and ideas about it.
3. The second is a discussion of your initial exploration of the title you chose, shared with your teacher in written form. A set of notes and ideas is enough, and a plan can come out of the discussion.
4. The third is a comment on one full draft. You are permitted to present one full draft of the essay, and what comes back is oral or written advice on how the work could be improved.
5. The form is not referred to by examiners when they determine the mark for the essay. It is submitted to the IB as evidence that steps were taken to support the authenticity of your work.
6. You may seek further advice after the one full draft, for example about an example's suitability or a section's clarity. No further written advice on drafts is permitted. The next version handed to your teacher must be final.
7. Confirm the current upload procedure and school deadline with your teacher or coordinator.

Academic integrity: the line the essay must sit on

1. The essay has to be your own work. Everything submitted is authenticated before it goes to the IB and must contain no known instance of suspected or confirmed misconduct.
2. Your teacher may give oral or written advice on how the one full draft could be improved, but may not mark or edit it.
3. The next version handed to your teacher must be the final version for submission.
4. Your teacher authenticates the essay before it is submitted, and one of the ways authenticity can be checked is a conversation with you about the content of your own work.
5. The line is about authorship rather than about help. Being told that your third paragraph asserts where it should argue leaves the writing yours; a sentence composed for you does not.
6. You must confirm that the officially submitted final version is your own authentic work. Once officially submitted, it cannot be retracted.

What happens when an essay runs over

1. Running over does not produce a deduction. It produces a cut-off: the assessment rests on just the first 1,600 words, and what follows that point goes unread.
2. Which part goes unread is settled by position rather than by importance. If your strongest evaluation of the other view sits in the last paragraph, that is the part outside the reading.
3. Find your own 1,600th word and mark it. What sits after that mark is the part no reader sees, so the question is not whether those words are good but whether anything the essay needs is stranded there.
4. If your conclusion falls beyond the limit, its judgment and implications will not be read. Develop those implications through the discussion rather than relying on a final paragraph to introduce them all.
5. Look first for repeated reasoning, unnecessary case description and points that do not help answer the title. The best cut depends on what your draft contains.

The formal checks to run before upload

1. Check the title against the source it was issued in, character by character, including its punctuation and any second sentence it carries.
2. Check the count of the main text plus quotations, and confirm that the number you are about to declare is the number the file gives you.
3. Check that references, bibliography, acknowledgements and any tables or diagrams sit outside that count, so you have not cut argument to make room for material that was never being counted.
4. Check that the file uses standard 12-point type and double spacing.
5. Check that every source you drew on has a reference a reader could follow, and that each reference corresponds to a sentence in the essay that depends on it.
6. Check that the three recorded interactions are complete before you upload, since the form goes to the IB alongside the essay as evidence about the authenticity of your work.
7. Do all of this on the file you are about to upload rather than on the version you remember finishing. Every requirement on this list is a property of one specific file.