I advice you to do it digitally... If you write 4,500 words by hand, you will get tired

I am currently in the middle of my Extended Essay in Mathematics.

For those of you who wonder what the Extended Essay is, you can go to this site http://www.ibo.org/diploma/curriculum/core/essay/index.cfm but I will here try to describe what it is.

The IB Diploma programme consists of six subject groups and three core elements. These core elements are Creativity, Action and Service (CAS), Theory of Knowledge and the Extended Essay. They are all mandatory in the Diploma Programme.

The Extended Essay is an essay with the purpose of giving the student a chance to choose a topic to study in detail within a subject. Although you can choose whatever subject the school offers, you should choose one of the topics you are currently doing in the Programme, since you are then sure of getting a supervisor that knows your skills in the subject and that can help you during  your writing process in a more efficient manner.

I can use my own essay as an example. I have chosen to write my essay in Standard Level Mathematics. The topic I have chosen to write about is “fractals”, which were developed by Mendelbröt in 1975 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal). Fractals can be used for different purposes, but I have chosen to focus on its ability to measure coastlines. I will therefore try to measure the coastline of Norway.

The most important step of my process is to make a good outline and develop an adequate research question. After having done so, the writing process starts. My school offers an Extended Essay week, where we have an entire week focusing only on the essay with all supervisors present. After this week we must have finished a first draft.

I will come back with more info on the run. If you found my topic interesting, let me know!