3 tips to less stress, & more success, on your ToK Essay
It's not too hard to write a good ToK Essay if you follow these 3 tips to less stress, & more success, on your ToK Essay.
Tip # 1: Start early.
The most common mistake that I see in the writing of the ToK Essay is not leaving yourself enough time to write the essay. The essay is deceptively short at 1600 words, most students can write 1600 words in 4-5 hours. However, can you write 1600 words of high quality ToK in 4-5 hours ? Probably not. Ideally you will start planning your essay weeks before the Draft essay deadline, giving yourself time to develop your understanding. Treat the Draft Deadline as your 'final deadline".
The ideas, concepts, knowledge claims and counterclaims in the essay take time to develop. If you spend a few weeks writing your essay you will develop deep and informative insights which are not immediately apparent at first glance. Our minds undertake 'latent learning', this is when we subconsciously process (& learn) whilst we are either doing other things, or asleep. You can make great use of latent learning to develop your understanding of your chosen ToK essay.
Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.
John Lennon
Tip #2: Read Exemplars
Approximately 12,000 students are awarded A in ToK each year, it's not implausible that an equal number of students will achieve 9-10 marks in their ToK Essay each year. The IB publish exemplar essays to the ToK teachers, ask your teacher to show you these exemplars if they are yet to do so. Further, your ToK teacher probably keeps a collection of high scoring essays from former students at your school - these can also be very useful. Read these high scoring exemplars, work with fellow ToK students, consider:
what do these high scoring essays have in common?
what structures do they use?
what language do they use?
how do they address the command terms?
how do they develop evaluation and implications in the essay?
how do they use RLS?
and many many other characteristics of the high scoring essays.
Tip #3: Thinking & Planning: 75%, Writing 25%
As we established earlier, the ToK Essay is not a great burden to write (it is far easier to write than the Extended Essay). However, the ToK essay demands a developed understanding of the concepts and relevant arguments.
Developed Understanding: a deeper understanding which recognises influences, nuance and implications.
D.Trump, ToK Teacher.
By "developed understanding" I mean:
informed by your considered and deep critical thinking.
informed by the writing of other thinkers.
appropriately applied to the chosen prescribed title set by IB.
appropriately applied to the arguments that you are using in your essay.
In order to develop this deep understanding you will need to spend a significant time thinking and planning. Thinking is not a substitute for equivocating (wasting time, dodging the work, putting off getting started). Thinking needs to be active, proactive and consolidated by research.
How much "Thinking and Planning time do I need ?"
Most teachers will give you approximately 2-3 months to write your Draft essay. The Draft deadline should be treated as the final deadline, ensure that you submit a fully complete and polished Draft by the Draft deadline, by doing so you will maximise the quality and effectiveness of the written feedback from your teacher.
If you have 3 months to complete the Draft then you could usefully spend 2 months planning (& thinking). The more time that you spend developing a strong understanding of the essay, the easier it will be to write your Draft. The essay has a 1600 word limit, you will probably need to write 1400-1600 words to get a good score. You can probably write 1600 words in about 8 hours if you have a really solid foundation of thinking and planning upon which to write.
During the thinking and planning time you should be frequently consulting with your ToK Teacher. Show them your planning documents, consult with them about the arguments that you plan to use, show them a draft of your introduction, get their advice on evaluation and implication points etc. Your ToK teacher is a fount of good suggestions, and advice. Your ToK Teacher is your best resource in this process - proactively communicate with them throughout the process - their help will reduce your stress and help you realise success!
There's also a lot of useful information (including the ToK Essay Marking rubric) on this page.
If you need help with how to plan your ToK Essay then please see the blogpost linked here.
If you need help writing your ToK Essay please see the Student Support pages on this blog, buy the e-book (How to write the ToK Essay in 6 easy steps) or email me at Daniel@TokToday.com.
Stay Tok-tastic!
Daniel,
Lisbon, September 2022