Recommendations On A Biology Extended Essay
One of the assignments in an International Baccalaureate Diploma Program is writing an extended essay.If you are taking a class in biology, one of the best things about this is that you are at liberty to select the subject of your paper. Here are some tips on writing such a paper on biology.
- Choose a Topic
To begin with, you need to choose a narrow topic for your research paper. Unfortunately, you can’t select topics that are related to human behavior or human diseases and similar ones that are related to animals. For this reason, it is always advisable to choose a topic that concerns plants.
- Conduct your Research
Once you have decided on the topic you want to write about, you should begin doing your research. Your investigation should not only involve an analysis of the known and proven facts, but it should also involve conducting some experiments that can help to prove your arguments.
- The Research Question
Normally, academic articles must have a thesis statement. However, a biology extended essay should not have a thesis statement; rather it should have a research question. The research question should provide the main direction for all your work.
Create a Proper Outline
After gathering all the theoretical data and conducting the necessary experiments, you should now create an outline for your paper. An outline is essential because it helps to ensure that your text flows smoothly and it maintains a logical order. A proper outline should look as follows:
- Introduction
In the first paragraph, you need to create a context for the research you are conducting. This basically means that you should start by presenting the topic and provide a brief description of the background of the research question to the reader. It is always advisable to place your research question at the end of the introductory paragraph.
- The Body
The body section of this kind of paper should contain a presentation of all your main arguments, the methods that you employed to prove your arguments, as well as the results of the investigation you conducted. Ensure that you offer a detailed description of your methodology so that that other people can get to repeat your experiments to confirm your results.
- Conclusion
This is the last section of your paper. In this section, you need to conclude your biology extended essay by summarizing all your work. Do not forget to briefly discuss the results that you got from the experiments that you conducted. In addition, you should provide an answer to the research question as well as list other research questions linked to your topic that might warrant some future research.
- Preparing your Draft
Once you are through with creating an outline for your paper, it’s time to start writing your draft. Ensure that you show in your discussion that you understand how to use terminology that is specific to the field of biology, especially as it pertains to the topic you are investigating. However, do not overuse technical terminology as it will make your text difficult to understand for the reader.
- Editing your Draft
The final step in composing a biology extended essay is editing your draft. Editing your draft should not be a one –time process or affair but rather a series of processes. Start by proofreading to detect errors in grammar and punctuation and correct them. Afterwards you can read the paper again to see if your text flows in a logical manner. Lastly, you can give someone else the paper to read and provide your input.
In short, writing a biology extended paper is not a complicated task as some students might want to imagine. It is all a matter of choosing the right topic, doing in-depth research and analysis, an organizing your work in a manner that flows logically.
