6. Don’t worry if your first draft exceeds the word limit
It’s completely normal for you first draft to be a few hundred words over and it could even be positive! A friend of mine had about 6,000 words as her first draft and even though it must have been a pain editing things out, at least she didn’t have to add anything and she could work with her supervisor to see which parts were unnecessary. Nevertheless, be sure to divide your essay so that your final draft isn’t over the limit. I personally tried to divide my essay so that I had 500 words for the introduction and conclusion, and 3,000 words for my body.
7. Do not procrastinate – finish it over the summer
This is probably the most important tip of them all. Don’t leave your extended essay until the end of summer because you will not get a good grade! Think about it like this: the quicker you get your summer work over with, the more you can enjoy your actual summer. Don’t tell yourself you’ll have time once 12th grade begins because quite frankly, you won’t, considering that tests, internal assessments, written tasks and orals will be thrown at you in a matter of days. It’s common sense: the better your first draft is, the less you’ll have to change during the school year.
8. If you have a question, ask
It seems over-simplified and obvious but the job of your supervisor is to help you. Ask them if you can email them during the summer and, if you can, send them your first draft so that any major problems can be sorted out during the summer!
9. Academic honesty
Examiners and teachers are just waiting to catch you and label you as being “academically dishonest”, so this is important. There’s two easy ways to avoid it: Either you cite using the MLA handbook or www.easybib.com or you “make it your own”. Even if you develop the ideas from someone else further or change them, you should always cite.
10. Getting the points
If you read the EE criteria (and you should), you’ll notice that you can gain points by doing things your 12-year old sister can do. For example; staying within the word limit, having a title page with your candidate number and research question, and so forth. Make sure that you don’t get market off by the petty things like forgetting that your research question should be in the form of a question.