IB History SL Extended Essay Example

Your research question is clear, specific, and historically arguable, which gives the investigation a strong direction.

You keep the line of inquiry focused on causation rather than narration, and you consistently return to whether the Depression was a catalyst or a deeper cause.

Your overall topic selection and framing are appropriate for sustained historical investigation.

Your methodology is relevant, but it is explained more clearly than it is carried out.

You refer to some source types and selection principles that are not always fully visible in the bibliography.

The method would be stronger if you explained more explicitly how you weighed different kinds of evidence against one another.

You use a mostly relevant body of evidence, including economic data, official reporting, and historical scholarship.

Your understanding of the topic is clear and coherent, especially in linking Manchurian expansion to the Great Depression, militarism, and international weakness.

You use subject-specific terminology accurately and usually in a way that supports the argument.

Some evidence is broader or more retrospective than the immediate 1931 decision-making you are trying to explain.

A few claims move too quickly from economic hardship to political or military motivation.

Some terminology and causal language could be more carefully qualified so that structural conditions, catalysts, and immediate causes are not blurred together.