OVERVIEW
Note: Before you begin, it is important to know and understand that it is your responsibility, together with your supervisor, to ensure that your extended essay does not duplicate any other work submitted for the IB diploma, for example, an internal assessment (IA) task.
The extended essay presents a unique opportunity for you to investigate a topic of personal interest that is either clearly grounded in one DP subject or is appropriate for an interdisciplinary approach. Your essay should:

• respond to a clear, focused research question with appropriate research methods and in-depth analysis
• apply reasoned, evidence-based argument, and critical and original thinking, i.e., go beyond simply informing the reader about the topic 
• be coherent and well structured
• be framed by the context of the subject(s) you are using
• be informed by the distinctive approaches, concepts, methods, theories, or a combination of these, of the DP subject(s) it concerns.

An extended essay involves you applying your skills to explore a topic of personal interest in an imaginative, critical, and focused way. It is important that you choose a topic that lends itself to critical investigation and analysis, rather than one that steers you towards a descriptive or narrative piece of writing. A thoughtfully chosen topic that inspires your curiosity and spirit of inquiry paves the way for a strong, interesting essay. Your topic should provide a context that allows you to design a clear, focused research question. Staying too broad and general almost inevitably leads to descriptive, superficial writing that includes very little critical thinking. In contrast, topics that lead you to develop a refined, achievable research question are likely to encourage the focused application of your skills of discussion, analysis, argument, and evaluation. It is important to be flexible regarding your choice of topic. If your early investigation suggests a shortfall in the availability and suitability of resources needed to support research, be prepared to amend or change your topic. For guidance on getting started, refer to the “Researching and writing the extended essay” section of this guide.

Once you are happy with your choice of topic, it can be refined, narrowed and used to generate a workable, focused research question that will drive your research and writing and lead to the enhancement of the research and related skills shown in figure 7.
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The research and writing process
Figure 8 outlines the research and writing process that underpins your extended essay. However, this process may unfold in slightly different ways or with a different order of events.

Primary and secondary sources
In terms of gathering data, primary research sources are original data that has been gathered through research that is undertaken first-hand, through methods such as interviews, surveys, focus groups, experimentation, observation or participant observation. Secondary research is carried out by analysing or interpreting existing data that has been collected by others (see figure 9).

Secondary research—a review of the literature available on your chosen topic—is a requirement for each extended essay, regardless of pathway and subject(s) selected. In general, most DP extended essay subjects require the use of both primary and secondary research sources. However, this is not always the case, and you should check the subject-specific guidance to find out the rules on collecting primary research in certain subjects.

If you have gathered primary data for a different original purpose than for your extended essay, it may be used to support your extended essay research, provided that the discrete approach for your topic is clearly explained.

EE Guide pg 36