- What a strong English EE question looks like
- Category 1, 2 and 3: what changes for 2026 and 2027 candidates
- Example research questions from the IB's own guide
- Ideas: a single literary work
- Ideas: poetry, short stories and drama
- Ideas: comparative essays, including texts in translation
- Ideas: language and non-literary texts
- How the 2027 criteria apply to an English EE
- Writing your EE in English B instead
- A simple outline for an English EE
- How to Shape the Question
- Common English EE Mistakes
Quick Answer
A strong English extended essay analyses how one clearly defined text, or a small set of texts, creates meaning, and asks a focused question such as 'How, and to what effect, does Ishiguro use Stevens's unreliable narration in The Remains of the Day?'. Below are 35 example research questions by text type, with why each works, what to avoid, and how the 2027 criteria apply.
What You'll Learn
- From May 2027 the new EE guide applies: 30 marks across five criteria, and Categories 1, 2 and 3 are replaced by three text options
- The 2018 guide, with its 34-mark criteria and three categories, is used for the last time in the November 2026 session
- Base the essay on one or more clearly defined texts, with at least one originally written in English
- Ask how and to what effect, not what happens: analysis of technique beats theme-spotting
- Avoid texts from your English A course, very recent books with no criticism yet, and generic frameworks like the Hero's Journey
What a strong English EE question looks like
An English A extended essay analyses one or more texts to explore the effects they achieve and the devices that create those effects. The IB's new guide asks you to produce an in-depth study, undertake independent literary criticism and engage with established critical commentary. In practice, the strongest questions name the text, name the technique or lens, and ask how and to what effect. Test any idea against these four checks before you commit.
- A defined text base: one novel or play, three or four poems or stories by one writer, or a language corpus with dates, such as one politician's speeches on a single issue over two years.
- A technique or lens: narrative voice, imagery, structure, form, rhetoric, the interplay of image and text, or the way the text treats an issue, analysed as literature or language.
- Room to argue: 'how effectively', 'to what extent' and 'how, and to what effect' questions leave space for a judgement that is not obvious from the question itself.
- Critical material: published criticism, reviews or linguistic studies you can engage with and challenge, not just summarise.
Pro Tip
Read your question aloud. If you could answer it by retelling the plot, it is not yet analytical enough.
Category 1, 2 and 3: what changes for 2026 and 2027 candidates
Which rules apply depends on your exam session. The new Extended essay guide was published in February 2025, taught from August 2025, and is first assessed in May 2027. November 2026 is the last session marked under the 2018 guide, so most students reading this now are on the new guide.
- November 2026 and earlier (2018 guide): English A essays are registered in one of three categories. Category 1 studies one or more literary works originally written in English. Category 2 compares a literary work originally written in English with one or more literary works originally written in another language, which may be studied in translation. Category 3 is a study in language based on one or more texts originally produced in English, such as speeches, advertising or media texts.
- May 2027 onwards (new guide): the numbered categories are gone. Your essay must be based on one or more clearly defined texts in one of three shapes: a single literary or language text originally written in English, a comparison of more than one literary or language text, or a comparison of a literary text with a language text.
- Comparisons under the new guide: at least one primary text must have been originally written in English; the other text or texts may be in translation. Pairing a novel with a set of speeches or advertisements is now explicitly allowed.
- Language of the essay: it must be written in the language it is registered in, and the new guide says you cannot submit a language A essay in the language of your language B course.
- Texts from your course: the new guide says a language A essay cannot be based on a text studied as part of your course (its wording names the language and literature course), although a different text by an author you studied is allowed. Check how your school applies this.
Pro Tip
If you are sitting in May 2027 or later and read 'Category 3' advice online, treat it as advice on a language-based essay. The analytical expectations carry over, but the category labels no longer appear in the guide.
Example research questions from the IB's own guide
The new guide (first assessment 2027) gives six Language A examples. The IB stresses that they are starting points and do not guarantee a high grade, because the mark depends on how well topic, question and approach work together against the criteria. They show the shape examiners expect: one named text or a tight pair, and a how or to-what-extent question.
- How effectively does Wilde both present and critique social expectations in The Importance of Being Earnest? One play and a clear evaluative angle; the guide expects background on Victorian society to support close reading, not replace it.
- To what extent and to what effect can Artificial Friends emulate humans to build relationships in Klara and the Sun? A recent novel analysed through characterisation and language, with secondary sources used critically.
- How and to what effect is satire used in the travels of the main characters in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Candide? A comparison with one text in translation, joined by a shared technique.
- What is the function and effect of the different approaches to ghosts in Beloved by Toni Morrison and The Turn of the Screw by Henry James? Two novels originally in English, compared through one motif.
- How, and to what effect, do Van Heusen menswear ads (1949-1951) use sexism to promote their clothes? A language-based essay on dated, multimodal texts, analysing how image and language work together.
- How effectively do Steve Jobs and Michelle Obama use rhetorical techniques to inspire their particular audiences? Two named commencement speeches (Stanford 2005 and Tuskegee 2015) compared through rhetoric and context.
Ideas: a single literary work
These questions focus on one work originally written in English (Category 1 under the 2018 guide). They suit you if you want depth rather than comparison. They are illustrative starting points, not past IB essays, so adapt one to a text you know well and have not studied in class.
- How, and to what effect, does Ishiguro use Stevens's unreliable narration in The Remains of the Day to expose the cost of emotional restraint? Works because the gap between what Stevens says and what the reader sees gives you constant close-reading evidence. Avoid drifting into a history of the English butler.
- To what extent does Mary Shelley's framed narrative structure in Frankenstein shape the reader's sympathy for the creature? Works because the nested narrators (Walton, Victor and the creature) give you a clear structural lens and a large body of criticism. Avoid a general essay on science and responsibility.
- How does Shakespeare use imagery of disease and corruption in Hamlet to present the state of Denmark? Works because the image pattern runs through the whole play and supports a sustained argument. Avoid listing every image; choose the scenes that carry your line of argument.
- How does Arthur Miller use stage directions and non-linear time in Death of a Salesman to present Willy Loman's decline? Works because the drama-specific terminology the guide asks for (stage directions, props, sound effects) is built into the question. Avoid diagnosing Willy; keep the focus on dramatic technique.
- How, and to what effect, does Toni Morrison fragment chronology in Beloved to represent the trauma of slavery? Works because structure and memory can be analysed passage by passage. Avoid turning it into a history essay; context should support the analysis, not replace it.
- How does Margaret Atwood use Offred's fragmented narration and the 'Historical Notes' epilogue in The Handmaid's Tale to question the reliability of testimony? Works because the epilogue reframes everything before it, which gives your argument a turn. Avoid comparing the novel with the television series.
- How does George Orwell present Newspeak in Nineteen Eighty-Four as a tool of political control, and how does the novel's appendix change that reading? Works because it joins language and literature in one precise focus. Avoid a political essay on modern surveillance.
- How does Cormac McCarthy use sparse dialogue and missing punctuation in The Road to present a world stripped of meaning? Works because the style is distinctive and easy to evidence line by line. Avoid summarising the journey.
- How does Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie use shifting viewpoints in Half of a Yellow Sun to present the Nigerian Civil War? Works because three focal characters (Ugwu, Olanna and Richard) give a clear structure for analysis. Avoid writing a history of the Biafran war.
Ideas: poetry, short stories and drama
For poems and short stories, the guide warns that your body of work must be robust enough to sustain 4,000 words. It suggests starting with complementary texts, for example three to four stories by one author or three to four poems by one poet on a theme, then testing whether that gives you enough to analyse without repeating yourself.
- How, and to what effect, does Carol Ann Duffy rewrite myth and history from female perspectives in four poems from The World's Wife? Works because each poem has a known source story to measure the rewriting against. Avoid choosing poems at random; pick four that share a technique.
- How does Seamus Heaney use the bog poems, such as 'The Tollund Man' and 'Punishment', to connect Iron Age violence with the Troubles? Works because the group is tight and the critical tradition is strong. Avoid a political history of Northern Ireland.
- How does Sylvia Plath use colour imagery in a selection of poems from Ariel to present the speaker's relationship with death? Works because colour recurs across the collection and gives you a thread. Avoid a biographical reading; the guide warns that biographical topics pull essays away from analysis.
- How does Alice Munro use time shifts and withheld information in the three Juliet stories ('Chance', 'Soon' and 'Silence') in Runaway? Works because the linked stories form a natural body of work. Avoid summarising each story in turn.
- How, and to what effect, does Tennessee Williams use lighting, music and other 'plastic theatre' devices in A Streetcar Named Desire to present Blanche's fragility? Works because Williams's own idea of plastic theatre matches the guide's drama terminology. Avoid analysing the 1951 film instead of the play.
- To what extent does Caryl Churchill's non-naturalistic structure in Top Girls challenge the idea of female success? Works because the opening dinner party and overlapping dialogue are precise dramatic features to analyse. Avoid a sociological essay on 1980s Britain.
Ideas: comparative essays, including texts in translation
You can compare texts under both guides (Category 1 if all are originally in English, Category 2 if one is in translation under the 2018 guide). The new guide says a comparative essay must state a compelling reason for choosing its texts, go beyond listing similarities and differences, state the dates of the texts, and give each primary text equal attention.
- To what extent do Ibsen's A Doll's House (in translation) and Kate Chopin's The Awakening use domestic spaces to present a married woman's entrapment? Works because both follow a woman who rejects the role imposed on her, so the basis for comparison is clear. Avoid comparing plots; compare how setting and symbol work.
- How, and to what effect, do Kafka's The Metamorphosis (in translation) and Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go use a matter-of-fact narrative voice to present dehumanisation? Works because tone is a precise, comparable technique. Avoid a broad essay on what it means to be human.
- How does Kamila Shamsie's Home Fire reshape the conflict between family loyalty and the state from Sophocles' Antigone (in translation)? Works because Home Fire openly retells Antigone, so the comparison has a built-in rationale. Avoid a policy essay on counter-terrorism; the guide requires the issue to be discussed within a literary context.
- How does Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea respond to the presentation of Bertha Mason in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre? Works because the intertextual link is explicit and widely discussed. Avoid treating Rhys's novel as a simple correction; analyse how voice and structure do the work.
- How do Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness represent Africa, and how far does Achebe's novel answer Conrad's? Works because Achebe's lecture 'An Image of Africa' gives you a critical framework to test. Avoid a theory essay with little close reading.
- How do Art Spiegelman's Maus and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis (in translation) use the conventions of the graphic novel to tell family histories of political violence? Works because the guide accepts images and multimodal texts, and both have substantial criticism. Avoid treating Persepolis as your English-language text: it was first published in French, so Maus must be.
Ideas: language and non-literary texts
Language-based essays (Category 3 under the 2018 guide) analyse non-literary texts such as speeches, advertisements, journalism, social media, song lyrics or screenplays. The new guide insists the texts are clearly defined, with dates where relevant, for example an individual's posts on one topic between January and March of a given year, and that you justify why you chose them. If you analyse a film, the focus must be the screenplay, its delivery and its effect.
- How does Greta Thunberg's use of direct address and accusation differ between her COP24 speech (December 2018) and her UN Climate Action Summit speech (September 2019)? Works because two short, transcribed speeches give a clear rhetorical comparison. Avoid debating climate policy.
- How did the language of UK government COVID-19 slogans change from 'Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives' (March 2020) to 'Stay Alert, Control the Virus, Save Lives' (May 2020), and to what effect? Works because the corpus is tightly dated and has attracted linguistic commentary. Avoid judging the policies themselves.
- How do Dove's 'Real Beauty' print advertisements from the campaign's early years (2004 to 2006) construct an alternative ideal of beauty through image and text? Works because multimodal analysis of a defined set is exactly what the guide describes. Avoid measuring marketing success, which belongs in business management.
- How do the front pages of a tabloid and a broadsheet frame the same event, such as the UK's EU referendum result, over a defined week? Works because you hold the event constant and compare headline, image and lexis. Avoid a single day's front pages, which are too thin for 4,000 words.
- How does Kendrick Lamar use shifts of voice and persona across To Pimp a Butterfly (2015) to explore Black identity in America? Works because song lyrics are accepted texts and the album has serious critical attention. Avoid music criticism; analyse the lyrics as language.
- How does the screenplay of Jordan Peele's Get Out (2017) use dialogue and comic misdirection to build social horror? Works because the guide accepts film when the focus is the written and spoken word. Avoid letting camera work dominate the analysis.
- How do Jacinda Ardern's public addresses in the week after the Christchurch attacks of March 2019 use inclusive language to define national identity? Works because the corpus is short, dated and rhetorically rich. Avoid treating the topic casually; the guide asks you to discuss sensitive topics with your supervisor.
- How do Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' (1963) and 'I've Been to the Mountaintop' (1968) use biblical allusion to persuade different audiences? Works because the rhetoric is dense and well studied. Avoid a civil rights history essay.
How the 2027 criteria apply to an English EE
From May 2027 every extended essay is marked out of 30 against five criteria. Criteria A to D are applied to the essay as a whole; criterion E marks only your reflective statement of up to 500 words on the Reflection and progress form (RPF). Here is what each criterion means for English, based on the guide's Language A notes.
- A: Framework for the essay (6 marks). Research question, research methods and structure. Your method is close reading plus engagement with criticism. Structure means an introduction that names your texts and focus, body paragraphs that build an argument from primary and secondary evidence, and a conclusion that answers the question. Headings are allowed if they do not fragment the essay.
- B: Knowledge and understanding (6 marks). Relevant sources, terminology and concepts. Terminology is the names of techniques (metaphor, enjambment, stage directions, camera shot types); concepts are ideas that run through a work, such as dystopia, the tragic hero or intertextuality. You must integrate a review of existing criticism on your topic.
- C: Analysis and line of argument (6 marks). Analysis has two steps: identify a feature of the text, then explain its significance or effect, the 'so what?'. A clear line of argument links your question, findings and conclusion.
- D: Discussion and evaluation (8 marks), the heaviest criterion. Discuss the significance of your findings in a balanced way, weighing critics' views against your own and giving each primary text equal attention in a comparison. Evaluate the strengths and limitations of your essay throughout, not in a bolted-on final section.
- E: Reflection (4 marks). Assessed only on the reflective statement, written at the end of the process after your viva voce. It rewards evaluation of how the experience changed you and how you will transfer what you learned, not a diary of what you did.
Watch Out
November 2026 candidates are marked out of 34 on the 2018 criteria: A Focus and method (6), B Knowledge and understanding (6), C Critical thinking (12), D Presentation (4) and E Engagement (6), with reflections recorded on the RPPF.
Writing your EE in English B instead
If English is your language B, the rules are different. Under the new guide a language B essay focuses on literary analysis, language use, or the culture of a country where the language is a main language of communication, or a combination of these. All texts must have been originally written or spoken in English, so translated texts are not acceptable, and you cannot write a language B essay in a language you study as language A. A culture topic must be specific to the English-speaking culture you choose: broad issues such as social media acronyms or emoticons are too general. Under the 2018 guide these areas were labelled Category 1 (language), Category 2 (culture and society) and Category 3 (literature). One example from the IB guide is: 'To what extent do the inaugural addresses of President Obama and President Trump reflect their different uses of Aristotle's three rhetorical techniques?'
A simple outline for an English EE
There is no compulsory template, but this outline follows the structural conventions the guide lists for Language A. Quotations count towards the 4,000-word limit; the contents page, references and bibliography do not. Examiners do not read beyond 4,000 words.
- 1Title page and contents page.
- 2Introduction: your text or texts and why you chose them, the research question, and the critical context in one or two paragraphs. For comparisons and language corpora, state the dates of the texts.
- 3Body: three to five sections, each built around one claim that answers part of the question and supported by close reading of quotations and engagement with critics.
- 4Conclusion: your answer to the research question, what it reveals about the texts, and the limits of your reading.
- 5References and bibliography in one consistent style.
How to Shape the Question
Strong English questions usually come from rereading, not from a list. Use the ideas above as models, then work through these steps with your own text.
- 1Choose a text you are happy to reread several times, that has published criticism, and that you have not studied in class.
- 2Reread with a pencil and note one technique that keeps catching your attention: a voice, an image pattern, a structural trick.
- 3Write three draft questions using 'how, and to what effect', 'to what extent' or 'how effectively'. Cut any that are double-barrelled or have an obvious answer.
- 4Find critical sources and check that they discuss your technique or lens, not only the plot.
- 5Take your best draft to your first reflection session and test it with your supervisor.
Common English EE Mistakes
These are the pitfalls the IB's guide itself flags for Language A essays, plus the rules that cost marks in any subject. An IB English A tutor can build the close-reading and essay skills a Language A EE draws on; the choice of texts and the argument stay yours.
- Self-limiting frameworks: the guide's own example of what not to do is applying a generic convention to a text, such as asking how the Harry Potter series reveals the Hero's Journey.
- Texts without enough depth: the guide warns that some young adult novels lack the complexity for detailed analysis, and that very recent books may not yet have much criticism.
- Biographical, historical, psychological or sociological topics, which pull the essay away from literary or language analysis and towards narrative.
- Using the text as documentary evidence for an issue instead of analysing how the text treats that issue.
- Summarising critics or repeating their views instead of engaging with them.
- Comparisons that only list similarities and differences, or give one text most of the attention.
- Hiding important analysis in footnotes or appendices: examiners are not required to read them.
Watch Out
Questions that ask what a text is about, rather than how its meaning is constructed, usually lead to descriptive essays that score low on analysis and discussion.