Research Question: Writing Your IA - Biology, Physics, Chemistry

Writing Your IA – Biology, Physics, Chemistry
Throughout your IA, you should use appropriate, scientific language. The
whole essay should be coherent and concise. You don’t need to follow any
specific formatting systems (like MLA and all). Just have a 12 sized font –
that’s all they ask for.
RESEARCH QUESTION
The research question should be fully focused and concise.
INTRODUCTION
You should aim to have around one-half to three-fourth page for introduction.
These are the things you should include in your introduction:
 How you came upon the topic

 Why you chose this topic and its significance
 Include a real life application to show the topic’s significance.
 What is your investigation about?
 A brief about what you have done in your investigatory project.
BACKGROUND
One-half to one page is usually what the length of the background section
should be. However, if you think you need to add more information that is
related to your IA, you can extend this. Don’t provide a lot of information, only
precise and relevant. You cannot include a whole chapter (or even half of it)
and say you’ve included everything there is to include.
Instead, make sure that you have:
 Appropriate and relevant information

 Nothing extra. Even if you’re talking about electrochemical cells, no need to
write on voltaic cell if your main concentration is on electrolysis.
 That said, do think that the moderator knows everything already and end up
having a very brief background section.
 Write everything that’s necessary, explain the background. That’s what this
section is for!
HYPOTHESIS
This should be done in a few lines.
 Write briefly what you think the result will be and how you came up with this
hypothesis (why you think this will happen)
 Keep it precise. You can blabber later on if you want, but there’s no need to do
so here. You’ll be wasting your own time, not to mention the space.
METHOD
The length of this depends on what you did. You should include each and
every thing that you did while collecting the data. Explain how you collected it.
If your method is too long, you can put it in the appendix.
Include any safety measures or ethical/environmental issues if they’re

applicable.
Its good if you can fit in a list of all variables and describe how the controlled
variables were controlled.
DATA
A very important thing to note here is that you need both qualitative and
quantitative data to score well here. Without that, you can lose marks. If you
think there is nothing to write for on one of them, you can ask me or your friend
or teacher.
 If you’re carrying out an experiment, you should record the observations and
put them in your IA. In case of simulation, you can observe a change in color or
speed or time taken, although it doesn’t show up as a variable on the screen.
When you are simply taking readings from a source to compare or observe the
trends, you will not have any qualitative data so ’tis fine to include only
quantitative data.
 Label all your graphs and tables properly and correctly.
 You should have enough data to base your conclusion on. They say ‘five data
points can be used to observe a trend’. If you need a good score, trust me,
you’ll need more than just five data points. To be on a safe side, include at least
one page full of data. You can have more, of course, but don’t put in a lot of
data (like 6 pages). Don’t ask why.
 Do put in uncertainties in your data – you get points for this little effort.
ANALYSIS
Use the data you collected and explain why you’re getting such data. You can
explain any trend or the reason why the data varies as it does. This should
take a minimum of one page. Its good if it goes beyond this.
 You can have additional tables or graphs here to explain your data properly.
 Explain in detail why ‘this’ happens. Its good to not assume things while doing
this. Don’t skip on anything because you think that the moderator knows this.
Write as if a 10th grader is going to read it.
 Use good language that both enhances the presentation of the IA and makes it
easy for the reader to understand what you’re trying to convey.
CONCLUSION
Don’t, don’t, don’t finish this in one line. For starters, think of five lines. The
conclusion has to be justified and supported by the data you’ve provided. Brag
on, exaggerate, but make sure its not too short.
Relate this to your introduction; talk a bit about the significance of the
conclusion and relate it again to to the real life application you talked about in
your introduction.
EVALUATION
You can include bits and pieces of evaluation in other parts of your IA (like in
method – talk about why this method is not so accurate but the other method
is too expensive/cannot be done in the laboratory, etc.) but you also need to
have a separate section. You can mix the conclusion and evaluation sections
if you want. Here you can talk about the following:
 Limitations of your IA
 Possible errors in your data and how you can improve them
 A possible and relevant extension to your investigation
 You can again relate this to your real life application by talking about how
the investigation can be improved or what else can be done in consideration
with the application

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Writing Your IA – Biology, Physics, Chemistry

 How you came upon the topic

Instead, make sure that you have:

 Appropriate and relevant information

Include any safety measures or ethical/environmental issues if they’re

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