Hack IB

The best way to learn how to write a great TOK Essay is by looking at the excellent examples of essays. We will continue to look at the 10/10 Essay that we are working with from when we deconstructed a 10/10 Introduction. This is an official example from the IB which scored a 10/10

Download and read the full essay here before we continue with the dissection!

This essay was given a mark of 10/10 by the IB with the following comments:

This is an example of an excellent essay. It was awarded a mark of 10/10. The discussion of the natural and human sciences is clear, effective and balanced. Various perspectives are evaluated, and the implications of the attempts to resolve the various disputes are drawn. This is an accomplished TOK exploration

Let’s take a look at some of the things that made this essay an excellent one, and how discussion was able to be described as clear, effective and balanced!

Starting with clear claims and counterclaims.

The author of the TOK essay writes very clearly and coherently about his arguments. This is achieved by starting each new idea with a very clear claim, using the words of the prescribed title, to give an answer.

The Essay has 1 main claim and 1 counterclaim.

Theoretical disputes may be resolved using evidence obtained through experimentation.

Practical disputes may arise from differences in interpretation, and this affects the resolvability of the knowledge disputes

If you recall the introduction to this essay, the student defined and outlined the differences between theoretical and practical disputes. Now, it guides them to answer the title. You will note that for each claim, he uses the words within the prescribed title, such as “disputes” and “resolvability”. Their claims are also not vaguely connected to TOK; they specifically include the use of the twelve concepts. “Evidence” for his claim and “Interpretation” for his counterclaim. It shows that his arguments are grounded within the TOK syllabus.

You see the structure of the essay clearly through these topic sentences. The student first introduces how disputes over knowledge claims can be resolvable. As the title required, explaining how the two AOKs fits with this argument and provides the necessary examples. They then argues with themselves, providing a counterargument through different types of disputes.

Relevant Examples

Continuing on with the theme of the claim and counterclaims, the student’s chosen examples effectively supports the arguments they make.

For the claim that “theoretical disputes could be resolved by experimentation”, they gave an example in each AOK. For the Natural Sciences, they mentioned how disputes surrounding Newton’s theoretical model of earth was ultimately resolved by geodetic expeditions. Meanwhile, for the Human Sciences, they used the “Nature vs Nurture” debate in psychology and how it was resolved by the Twin Study.

You can clearly see the links between the examples and the claim the student is making. There is a theoretical dispute (i.e. Newton’s theoretical model vs Cassin’s or Nature vs Nurture) in different AOKs, but both could be resolved by experimentation (i.e. geodetic expeditions or Twin Studies, respectively). They are solidly within the chosen AOKs. One in Physics for the Natural Sciences and the other in Psychology, part of the human sciences.

These examples are not too complicated for an IB student to understand. Even without studying IB Physics or Psychology, you should be able to understand the significance of knowledge in these areas presented by these examples. That is what examiners are looking for, as they are unlikely to be an expert in Physics or Psychology and the like.

When they are relatively simple (but not too simple!) and relevant, it shouldn’t take you anymore than 3-4 sentences to give a brief description of the example as the student has done here. As we can blatantly see how it relates to the claim, you don’t waste words trying to explain how the example ‘fits’ into your claim.

Using the examples well

After overcoming the struggle of choosing relevant and straightforward examples, students often have a hard time using it to illustrate the point they are making. They can get up to the step of describing the example, but when needing to explain the signifiance of the example to the essay and how it provides an answer to the prescribed title, they struggle. This step is what I call ‘extrapolating from the example to the whole AOK’. You can see that the student has done that really well here. This is the biggest area where students can demonstrate it is a great TOK essay.

Looking at the claim again, after introducing the aforementioned examples in Physics and Psychology, the student extrapolates these examples into issues of methodology. They discuss how these examples show that the Scientific method used in the examples demonstrate the importance of empirical evidence within the AOKs of Natural and Human Sciences. Thus, this empiricism provides a path to resolve theoretical disputes. The student shows how this is seen in the examples where experimental evidence (empiricism) is used to resolve different theoretical claims both in Psychology and Physics. However, that is not the end of the discussion. They go further into the arguments of ‘always solvable’ and again focus on the wider methodology of the AOK rather than the example specifically, arguing that the logical development of claims over time leads to disputes that can be resolved by experimentation, hence being always resolvable. You can see that, at the end of the essay, the examples are not mentioned. The examples are used as a tool to explore the wider issues within the AOK, and in general, arguments should be made about the AOK as a whole, not about how your claim manifests in the example itself.

One way you can learn to generalise from your examples is to make sure you are always talking about the AOK in general and not your examples after you have introduced them. I would suggest the following flow to your paragraphs:

• Introduce your example for the AOK (2-4 sentences)
• What does the example show about the AOK? (this could be methodological issues, peculiarities, issues of bias, strengths of the AOK, etc, ocassionally linking where possible to your examples)
• How is this relevant to the prescribed title? (Use the situation you demonstrated in the AOK and answer the prescribed title)

Picking challenging counterarguments

I see that many people often choose contradictory counterclaims for their TOK essay. There is a difference between picking counterarguments that are contradictory and challenging. Contradictory arguments ruin the credibility of your claims as you have just showed us that what you have talked about the whole time doesn’t make any sense. Meanwhile, a challenging counterargument will discuss how in certain cases or situations your argument will fail. This will provide your TOK essay with more nuance as you would be able to step beyond the standard Yes or No, to “Yes, but only when” or “No, but when….”. This contributes to a more balanced essay. Qualifying your responses to the prescribed title is a key way to score in the higher bands.

The essay here provides a good model for how to give good counterarguments. The counterclaim comes from another case of disputes – practical disputes. They demonstrate that, while yes, some types of disputes are resolvable by experimentation, for other types of disputes they are not, hence challenging, but not contradicting what they previously said. The examples they choose are similarly relevant as we have discussed in choosing your examples and using them well.

So when choosing counterclaims, come with the mindset that “your claim is not always true”, rather than “your claim is not true”. This will ensure you have challenging but not contardictory arguments.

Use TOK Terminology

Anytime that you are discussing something, you should be trying to use TOK terminology in the essay. You don’t need to be a full-blown philosopher, but you at least need to be able to use terms like interpretation, justification, perspectives, etc. It is not wrong to say that people’s “views” differ, but you could better demonstrate your TOK understanding by using words like “interpretation” or “perspectives” instead. Topics like “bias” and “subjectivity” or “objectivity” are really good words to pick up, rather than just saying that something is “unfair” or “given more attention”. I outlined the 12 TOK Concepts in my deconstruction of M23 Prescribed Titles.

Another thing worth mentioning is that the example uses the same words as within the prescribed title such as ‘disputes’ or ‘resolvable’. While it might be tempting to use synonyms for common words like ‘resolvable’, it is best to keep them exactly as the prescribed title is written, at least for your topic sentences so that it is clear to the examiner, you are staying focused on the title.

Conclusion

Writing the body paragraphs of the TOK essay may seem quite intimidating at first, but coming in with a plan and keeping these tips in mind will help you succeed!

Stay tuned as well for the final part, which is where we deconstruct the conclusion for this 10/10 essay example.

For more help on writing a good TOK Essay, check out the TOK help page.