Study and exam skills
Planning an extended research assignment
A phase-by-phase planner for the IB extended essay and long school research projects: question, sources, outline, drafts and integrity at each stage.
The short answer
A 4,000-word research project is a sequence of small decisions made in the right order. Students who start drafting before the question is sharp usually rewrite the whole thing twice.
This planner breaks the work into phases a student can follow, with the integrity line built in: tutors may question and stress-test, never write.
Breaking a long assignment into phases
Long projects fail in one of two ways: the student who does nothing for weeks because 4,000 words is unstartable, and the student who writes 4,000 words immediately and discovers in week eight that they answer the wrong question. Phases prevent both, because each phase is small enough to start and each has a checkpoint that catches wrong turns early.
The IB extended essay makes the stakes concrete: it is an independent, self-directed piece of research finishing with a 4,000-word paper, and every Diploma student writes one with a school-appointed supervisor. The planner below is sized to the EE and scales down to coursework and school projects without modification.
| Phase | Typical share of the timeline | Output at the checkpoint |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Question | First 10 percent | One focused, arguable research question, approved by the supervisor |
| 2. Sources | Next 20 percent | A source log with notes and full references as you go |
| 3. Outline | Next 10 percent | A section-by-section plan showing the argument’s shape |
| 4. Drafts | Middle 40 percent | A complete rough draft, written in dated milestones |
| 5. Revision | Next 15 percent | A draft revised against the assessment criteria |
| 6. Final checks | Last 5 percent | Citations, formatting, word count and the integrity declaration |
Choosing and narrowing a question
The question decides the grade more than the writing does. A strong research question is focused enough to answer in the word count and open enough to require argument. “Tourism in Bali” is a topic; “To what extent has villa development changed water use in one named banjar since 2015?” is a research question. The narrowing move is almost always the same: name the place, the period and the measure.
Test a candidate question with three checks: can it be answered with sources a student here can actually reach; does the subject’s methodology apply to it; and can it be argued rather than merely described? A tutor or supervisor may help sharpen the question; choosing it, and owning it, is the student’s work.
Source and note habits
Keep a source log from day one: every source read, with the full reference, the date accessed, and two or three notes in the student’s own words. The log does two jobs. It makes the bibliography nearly free at the end, and it is the student’s protection against accidental plagiarism, because notes written in their own words at reading time stay their own words at writing time.
A handful of strong sources read properly beats a folder of forty skimmed PDFs. Prioritise sources the subject respects: academic books and journals, official statistics, primary documents. Save the general-interest articles for orientation, and cite them rarely.
Drafting milestones
Draft by section, to dates, in any order except the introduction first. The middle sections are the evidence; the introduction only makes sense once they exist. A workable pattern for a 4,000-word piece: one 500 to 800 word section per week for five or six weeks, each dated on the calendar, each ending with ten minutes logging what the next section must now do.
Expect the rough draft to be rough. Its job is to exist, complete and arguable, so that revision has something to work on. Students who protect the draft’s quality at the expense of its existence arrive at the deadline with a beautiful opening third and nothing else.
One collision to plan for: long projects run alongside exam preparation, and both pretend to be the priority. The calendar resolves it. Project milestones and exam revision blocks both go on the same planner, and when the total exceeds the available hours, trim the project’s scope early rather than stealing sleep late. A narrowed question answered well outscores a broad one rushed.
Final checks
- Read the assessment criteria and check the draft against every line; markers use the same document.
- Check every citation resolves to the source log, and every claim that needs a source has one.
- Verify formatting requirements: word count, title page, referencing style, and any required reflection forms.
- Read the whole piece aloud once; the ear catches what the eye skims.
- Confirm submission mechanics early: the platform, the format, the deadline in your time zone, and the declaration that the work is your own.
Working with your supervisor
Most long school projects, and every extended essay, come with a supervisor: a teacher assigned to advise. Use the meetings you are given. Arrive with the current question, the source log and one specific problem to solve, and leave with one agreed next action. Students who treat supervision meetings as status updates waste them; students who treat them as working sessions finish earlier and write better.
Keep a one-line record after each meeting: what was agreed, and by when. It protects you if advice is later questioned, it keeps the plan honest, and it turns the whole project into evidence of exactly the self-management universities say they want.
Where a tutor legitimately helps
A tutor is most valuable in phases one and three: sharpening the question and stress-testing the outline, where an experienced reader saves weeks. During drafting, legitimate help is questions, not words: “what evidence supports this paragraph?” rather than rewritten sentences. Our integrity guide states the rules by assessment type, and we hold them without exception, because the extended essay is defined as independent, self-directed research and the declaration at the end must be true.
For students who need that kind of supervision, our IB tutoring page describes how we support Diploma students, including EE process coaching, and our writing tutoring page covers the academic writing skills these projects draw on. Every engagement begins with a complimentary 30-minute discovery call.
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Sources and further reading
Published by Private Tutoring Bali. Sources and corrections.