"Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful."
- Margaret J. Wheatley (b.1944), American educator and management consultant

Reflections are a formal requirement of the Extended Essay. Reflections must focus on your progress during the different stages in the EE process, including planning, research, and process of writing the essay. Reflections in the extended essay should be focused on the process, rather than affective as required in CAS or critical thinking as expected in TOK. Students should reflect on the development of their extended essay, the different opportunities available, choices made, and the process of decision making. For Business Management, reflections can be based on conceptual understanding, such as Change, Culture, Ethics, Globalization, Innovation, and Strategy.

In this section of the InThinking Business Management website, my esteemed IBEN colleague Dr. Rima Puri shares her top 10 tips for reflections and in completing the RPPF.

Reflections carry 17.6% of the total marks available (6 out of a total of 34 marks available for the EE). Students quite often focus on writing the extended essay and invest limited time to reflect and complete their RPPF. It is important to plan when to write reflections and what to write in the form. This should be done immediately after the interviews/meetings with your EE supervisor and not left for the last minute. The total words available are 500, nothing more than this at all. Examiners are instructed not to read beyond the word count limit. Exceeding the 500 word count limit will impact your scores negatively. Hence, use approximately 150 words for the first two reflections, and approximately 200 words for the final reflection.

The first reflection should focus on the approach towards the essay, the methodology to be employed, and forecasting possible limitations. Consideration of the following should help you to write a good first reflection:

• Include how your interest in the specific topic developed – but do not focus on the subject (Business Management) itself.

• Focus on the topic (based on the syllabus content) and the issue under investigation (research question) from the very beginning.

• Give examples of background reading you have done so far, such as research papers, academic journals, business magazines, textbooks, non-textbooks about the topic, specialized sources, and so forth.

• Consider whether you are able to get varied and relevant secondary data sources?

• Indicate how you wish to focus on a particular topic (do not be too broad but try to narrow this down, so there is a clear and purposeful focus).

• Be curious about the research opportunity and demonstrate initiative in this first reflection.

The focus of this second reflection is analytical, so must focus on what you have done so far, the process itself, challenges you have faced (and perhaps overcome), and progress made in writing the essay. Consideration of the following should help you to write a good interim reflection:

• List the challenges that you faced and how you overcame these. For example, you may have observed final accounts in new/different formats, not the IB prescribed ones for the P&L account and Balance sheet. This may have made it difficult for you to comprehend and apply to the research question. However, you demonstrated initiative in interpretation of such financial data, and you learned new formats and applied them to the research question.

• Outline the process of structuring your essay.

• Include how you are considering the different perspectives or varied opinions presented in the report.

• Think about the range of sources referred to and how you determined the authenticity or validity of the data accessed.

• How did you ensure you stuck to and met timelines and interim deadlines?

• There may be data contradicting each other; if so, how did you handle this issue?

• Have you changed any aspect of the methodology during your extended essay journey? If so, how and why did this occur?

• Have you made mistakes along the way? If yes, acknowledge what you have  learned from these mistakes.

The focus of the third reflection is evaluative, and concludes your essay. Comment on the journey and successes of the overall process in completing your extended essay. Consideration of the following should help you to write a good final reflection:

• Express positive feelings - what did you learn as an IB Diploma student during the whole process? How did you improve as an IB learner? What skills have you developed?

• Did you acquire any new skills, such as research, citation and referencing, technical skills, structuring of academic essays, note-taking skills, and so forth.

• Did this research change any of your perspectives, outlook, or opinions on the topic that was investigated or Business Management in general?

• Did something/anything surprise you during the extended essay process?

• Were there any aspects of Business Management that you were not aware of but came across due to this research process?

• Consider the challenges faced and how you overcame these. Include your response to the challenges faced. It is possible that you had exceeded the word count limit and you simply decided to read the essay again in an attempt to locate repetition and noted these using different colours and/or font sizes. This helped you to ensure that your final essay met the word count criterion.

• Above all, demonstrate your personal engagement and intellectual journey in your final reflection. Most importantly write this in your own voice as a student.

Include this in your reflections before, during, and after writing the extended essay. Demonstrate your academic discovery and the evolution of your conceptual understanding. Demonstrate the rationale for your decision making. It is important to highlight the journey and process as an opportunity for intellectual growth and personal experience.

Do not reflect in a superficial way, but make real business connections. Refer to the application of relevant business tools, theories, and techniques used to answer the research issue under investigation.

Show that you have used more than just the Internet for your research, but that you have referred to varied and valuable sources. Include references to your initial reading, newspaper articles, academic journals, and/or specialized trade papers. These should also be including in your list of works cited (bibliography) as well as your reflections.

It is absolutely fine if you had to change the direction of your research question – this is quite common actually. However, do reflect on the reason(s) for doing this. Include what you learned in this process.

The Extended Essay is an academic piece of work, so you must use relevant business terminology, theories, and techniques in a purposeful way. However, there is no need to use footnotes to define or explain the meaning of key terms used or to attach a glossary list at the end of the extended essay. Examiners are familiar with this already.

Consider how your journey could have been improved or how the process could have been made better? For example, you may have lost all or some of the data collected and had to rework some aspects of the essay. You may have realized or learnt about the use of online tools to help manage an ever-growing list of web pages used to complete the essay.

Most top tips tell you what you need to you. This final top tip on reflections in the EE talks about what not to do. So, make sure you do not:

• Talk about personal issues that you may have faced during the EE process. Instead, demonstrate how you overcame the academic challenges faced during the overall process, and what you learned as an IB Diploma student.

• Count the hours spent on researching the data for your essay or discussing your essay with your teacher/supervisor. There is no formal requirement to compile such a record. The recommended hours from the IB are suggestions rather than formal requirements for assessment purposes.

• Comment on problems/issues about your extended essay supervisor (such as being new to teaching Business Management) or your school librarian. Reflections should be about your own academic journey as a learner.

• Be descriptive. Writing a narrative does not meet the academic requirements or rigour expected of an EE. Instead, you need to be analytical and evaluative in your reflections. Remember, the examiner has probably already read your extended essay before looking at your RPPF. There is no need to repeat the findings in your reflections. Instead, reflect on your journey as a learner.

• Submit your work with proofreading. Although students are not directly penalized for the use of incorrect spelling, punctuation, or grammar in the RPPF, it is worth your time checking each of the written reflections before uploading these on the RPPF. Treat the process with respect and present your work, as always, in a professional manner. You can use online tools to help with checking the spelling, punctuation, and grammar in the essay.

Wishing you all the very best in the completion of your Extended Essay and the all-important RPPF.

Dr. Rima Puri
Dr. Rima Dinesh Puri a highly experienced IB educator and a lifelong learner with proven academic excellence and has completed her PhD, M.Phil, PGDBM and M.Com from various accredited universities. She has a wealth of expertise, including the role of Senior IB Examiner, Internal Assessment Moderator and an Extended Essay examiner for Business Management. She is also the author of "50 Worksheets Pack - Unit 4: Marketing" from L7E (www.level7education.com)