Internal Assessment

Hints & Tips

 

  • Please have a close look at your English. To improve your language: a) Please use your spell checker, b) read it through on your own, c) have someone else correct your mistakes - this is perfectly legal and does not mean you have not complied to academic standards. Perhaps this paper helps a little to omit the most frequent mistakes.
  • A truly great site to find out if and how you can use a word or phrase in English: Sara
  • Please use the ' instead of the ´ or ` as an apostrophy - that is the # key left of the return key.
  • Please use the " key for your inverted commas and tell your word processing software to use "Gerade" Anführungszeichen durch "typographische". You can find that in Extras ->Autokorrektur -> AutoFormat während der Eingabe (in Word).
  • Apparently some of you have not had a single look at the information given on the IA in the history guide or on the IBO page (which is the same content). So please please use that, especially since B and D seem to be quite a problem for some of you. If it still is a problem then have a look at the sample papers in connexion to the specs in the history guide. Some of you have obviously done so and are able to comply to this structure.
  • Corrections in your papers done by me are red, meaning that there is a mistake or that the entire word should be omitted. Green means that I have inserted this.
  • Do not quote your entire source in the text! If the sources are easily accessible it is suffice to have their reference in part F. If not please put them into the appendix.
  • 100,000: Use the comma, not a stop/period!
  • Please do not write Goetheschool - the name is Goetheschule.
  • Use full forms: it is, cannot, do not etc., not contractions like it's, can't, don't etc.
  • Please write short dates such as on 26 July, 1956. It saves words and it is not general usage anymore to write on the 26th of 1956.
  • Do not use Wikipedia as a source!!
  • You can always use short titles in the fns if you clearly state them in F, e.g. L.F. Fitzhardinge, The Spartans, London 1980, short: Spartans or
    L.F. Fitzhardinge, The Spartans, London 1980, short: Fitzhardinge 1980
  • Many of you forget the P in opvl in C or are not explicit enough about the sources.
  • Please do not wrap your sheets up, i.e. do not put them in plastic envelopes!
  • Feedback by the IBO to former IA: Accurate referencing was a problem that needed attention; this includes the employment of a proper format of one standard system such as APA or MLA. Please discourage students from using annotated footnotes - as they are not included in the word count and are therefore not read for information. This was particularly difficult for a student who provided translations from German in the annotation. The choice of sources was also an area to focus on - the students should be aware that encyclopedias are not academic sources, and only those sources directly referenced should appear in F. Section C needs to use the terms Origin, Purpose, Value and Limitation explicitly in the responses. Also the focus should be on the sources themselves, rather than upon a critique of their content. Finally, a comparison of the sources is not necessary and takes up the word count.