In this guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know about Physics Extended Essay in IB. We’ll look at:
- What Physics EE is all about
- How to choose a topic
- The right approach to handling your topic and
- Physics EE assessment criteria
What’s Physics EE in IB?
A physics extended essay is an individual assignment that requires you to utilize a variety of abilities while exploring a topic of personal interest in the discipline of physics.
It focuses on physics within a broader set of scientific standards, and it takes the form of a research that incorporates a hypothesis or model, or a critical analysis that displays argumentation, comparison, or the extraction of pertinent information or data.
How to Choose a Physics Extended Essay Topic
The first rule when it comes to topic selection is that you must put emphasis on a subject within physics.
In other words, IB students have to ground their extended essays in physical theory and underline the subject's essence.
To write a more comprehensive, extended essay in the subject, you should select a focused, practical, and well-defined topic that allows you to conduct an in-depth analysis.
Avoid broad or complicated subjects, because they will not allow you to explore contradictory views and hypotheses.
Also, a broad topic will not allow you to conduct an in-depth, personal interpretation within the word limit recommended for EE.
Additionally, you should avoid investigating issues that extend outside the bounds of mainstream science, such as metaphysics or pseudoscience. Examples include of investigative issues include:
- Extrasensory experience
- The relationship between physics and the existence of God
- The mysterious forces of pyramids
The IB board considers it helpful if you can specify the subject further in the form of a research question, followed by a statement of purpose that indicates the approach you will employ to answer the question.
If you’re going to focus on an experimental essay, you will need to select a more practical experiment that does not need substantial amounts of time for equipment building.
In some instances, more advanced equipment might create constraints and inhibit the comprehension of a phenomenon. Successful trials will generate the data required for a sound analysis reasonably quickly.
Some Physics Extended Essay topics may not be acceptable for examination due to safety concerns.
For example, you need to avoid topics that requires experiments using hazardous or carcinogenic chemicals, radioactive materials, lasers, microwaves, ultraviolet light, noise, or heavy equipment.
Physics Extended Essay Writing Help
Do you need help with your Physics Extended Essay but have no idea where to get it online? You can contact Help for Assessment right now.
The EE writers at Help for Assessment are ready to offer you the kind of writing necessary to complete your Physics Extended Essay homework on time and score good marks. Whether you need help with topic selection and writing or you already have a topic to work on, you can hire one of our top writers to help you get the work done.
Our Physics Extended Essay writing service involves topic selection, development of a research issue, in-depth research, and writing.
We pay close attention to the Extended Essay requirements to ensure the paper we deliver to you meets the assignment’s scope.
Given that Physics is a technical subject, you shouldn’t wait until the last minute to start working on it. Get started early with our writing help.
How to Write a Physics Extended Essay
The primary goal of this type of assignment is to demonstrate a clear understanding of the topic you’ve selected to work on. So to ensure you write the best EE in the subject:
1. Choose the Right Angle to Direct Your Assignment
It’s important to note that your Physic extended essay will need to express an in-depth study into the history or theory of the particular topic. However, it’s different for long assignments I the subject.
For long subjects, you may focus on:
- Experimental physics: This area focuses on the design and execution of an experiment, followed by personal data collecting and analysis.
- Data based physics: It focuses on location and extraction of non-student-collected raw or processed data, which is subsequently refined and analyzed.
- Theoretical physic: The focus is on the formulation of a quantitative or semi-quantitative description of a physical phenomenon, the application of the model, and the prediction of its behavior and limitations.
- Survey: It involves the construction of a coherent, organized, analytic, and supported (qualitative and quantitative) discussion of the issue
All long physics essays should include an overview of the work's scope and limits.
This should always include a study of any experimental design, data uncertainties and accuracy, mathematical approaches, links to theoretical models, and the dependability and quality of sources.
2. Give a Direct Analysis of Your Research Topic
The essay's body and progression should directly analyze the research topic.
Experimental essays can help students to demonstrate their critical thinking more clearly, but experimental activity aren’t necessary for the assignment.
However, you must provide a clear theoretical component for each empirical inquiry.
If you include any experimental effort in your Physics extended essay, ensure to document it thoroughly so that other researchers can produce it with identical findings and conclusions.
If you’ve opted to collect data from secondary sources, use it with extreme caution.
Ensure you provide a comprehensive evaluation of the location and credibility of the sources required for databased essays at the outset of the planning process.
You should apply the same scrutiny to this data and the experimental design as if you had gathered the data yourself.
3. Examine Your Research Techniques Thoroughly
A thorough examination of research techniques is necessary in a Physics extended essay.
That’s because it might reveal severe problems in experimental design or data collection that invalidate or at least limit the interpretation of the results completely or in part.
A purely empirical inquiry linking two or three variables without a theoretical basis is unsatisfactory.
For example, if you utilize a computer simulation of a theoretical model, you should extensively analyze the methods devised or implemented and you should compare simulated results to actual events to determine their validity.
If you’re going to write an essay that contains a theoretical model that describes a physical occurrence, your planning should include the beginning postulates, the important stages for running the model, and the simulation results collected.
4. Explain Your Literary Sources Thoroughly
In theoretical, data based, or survey extended essay in Physics, you must include an assessment of the quality and dependability of the literary sources.
You have to have sufficient knowledge of the issue to evaluate the credibility of the sources.
You can accomplish this by researching secondary sources or calculating independently.
Also, you should not be hesitant to discuss opposing viewpoints and share your own thoughts with supporting evidence.
In survey or theoretical essays, appropriate preparation requires examining source material in light of the research topic so that you utilize the opinions of other scientists to support your own thesis, rather than as a replacement for it.
5. Make Your Analysis Clear and Concise
An analysis must supplement data or information rather than merely duplicate it. And you need to make sure you derive interpretations logically from facts or information.
Your essay needs to include the avoidance of unfounded, far-fetched extrapolation and the acknowledgement of flaws.
The commentary should not simply a restatement of the data. It should produce a strong interpretation of the results, which ones can compare to previously published research on the subject.
Related Readings
Physics Extended Essay Assessment Criteria
The following is the assessment criteria used to gauge the depth and comprehensiveness of your Physics Extended Essay:
Criterion A: Research Question
The criterion requires that your research topic must be relevant to physics as a science, centered on physics and not on ancillary problems, and clearly recognized and prominently presented in the introduction.
Criterion B: Introduction
The introduction should tie the research question to the existing body of knowledge on the topic.
You should not include your personal experience or viewpoint here, as it’s highly unlikely to be helpful at this point.
You should place the pertinent physics concepts within the context of the issue. You need to view the introduction as a chance to be more precise rather than appearing bloaty.
Criterion C: Investigation
The strategy you use for investigation should show a clear pertinent theory as well as an understanding of the inherent uncertainties and limits of procedures and equipment used in the Physics Extended Essay.
Criterion D: Knowledge and Understanding of the Research Issue
The knowledge and comprehension exhibited in a physics essay should go beyond the course or laboratory.
You have to demonstrate that you can use the essential information obtained in the classroom in a new physical environment that necessitates its interpretation.
Criterion E: Reasoned Argument
Students should be aware of the necessity to provide a developing argument in the body of their writings.
In order to persuade the reader of the correctness of one's opinions, you have to include logical and helpful arguments in your work.
Criterion F: Use of Analytical and Evaluative Skills
You must demonstrate a comprehension of the mathematical and statistical correlations automatically generated by systems.
It is necessary to have a thorough and firm awareness of the inherent constraints of an inquiry and their consequences for the results obtained.
Criterion G: Use of Language and Terminologies Relevant to the Subject
The usage of scientific terminology is required throughout your Physics Extended Essay.
To understand the right format, structure, and presentation of a scientific paper, you should study articles from reputable scientific journals and periodicals.
The essential quality of the language is exactness and common expressions such as "function of" and "proportional to" must have specific meanings. You should specify any symbols used in context.
Criterion H: Conclusion
Make sure that the conclusion of your Physics EE develops from the argument and not introduce new or irrelevant material.
It should not duplicate the information presented in the introduction, but rather give a new synthesis in light of the conversation.
The conclusion should indicate how uncertainties in experimental data, the constraints of a model or experimental design, or the reliability of sources affected the outcomes of your work.
Criterion I: Formal Presentation
This criterion addresses the extent to which the essay complies with academic norms about the format of research papers.