TOK Essay Writing Tips

Theory of Knowledge (TOK)  is an IB subject that often, unjustifiably, baffles many students entering the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. It’s important to remember that this course was designed to be accessible by all students and that the aim is to see you succeed not fail. Yes, TOK is challenging and unique but there are many ways students can approach this course and meet with success at the end. In order to understand any subject better it’s important to think about its purpose and structure and what exactly the assessments are trying to measure. So I strongly encourage all students to carefully read through the guide to this course and speak to your teacher as questions arise. The more you understand the course, the less you fear it, and the better chance you have at success. So, what are the top tips for success?

Firstly, you must carefully consider what the assessments are trying to measure. Despite changes to some of the assessment structure, those students who started TOK prior to 2020 and those who started in 2020 both write an essay as part of their coursework requirement. In both instances the essay is worth ⅔ of your final grade and is therefore the most significant assessment. The essay assignment has long been a feature of TOK and remains much the same. You will be offered a choice of possible essay prompts and be expected to write a 1600 word essay. These essay questions are in fact “knowledge questions”.

How do we make a good outline?

1. Well, we start with the essay instrument and look at how it will be assessed.
2. What Areas of Knowledge will you cover?
3. What Ways of Knowing?
4. What examples will you use?
5. Are these examples “predictable” (eg Hitler, Newton etc)? Aim for original examples!
6. What is your argument?
7. What are the different points of view regarding this argument? How can you evaluate those different points of view?
8. What are the claims you are making about knowledge?
9. Can you think of knowledge questions connected to the essay prompt?

If you think through these questions in relation to the titles given, you should be able to discard the questions that are more problematic to you. Sometimes questions sound fun but once you get farther into them you may realise you really don’t understand what is being assessed or they are far more complex than you had first anticipated.

One former TOK essay title read: “When the only tool you have is a hammer, all problems begin to resemble nails” (Abraham Maslow). How might this apply to ways of knowing, as tools, in the pursuit of knowledge? (May 2014). This question sounds as if it would be a lot of fun and give you an opportunity to be creative in your answer but there are a lot of variables here which could really lead you down the wrong path. If you had made a decent outline and still felt this question was your top choice, you should sit down with your TOK teacher and really talk through your approach to see if they recommend you carry on. To be safe though, questions where there are clearly specified Areas of Knowledge and/or Ways of Knowing tend to be more manageable . Which leads me another tip for success with the essay

The new syllabus for TOK  introduced a new assessment called “The Exhibition”. This replaces “The Presentation” so make sure you don’t get the two confused. The Exhibition is worth ⅓ of your final grade. Like the essay, you will complete this new assessment on your own. There are 35 different prompts provided by IB and you choose one of them. As with the essay prompts, make sure you spend some time choosing the prompt that is right for you.And make sure you stay true to that prompt and don’t alter or change the wording in any way.  You then choose three “objects” which relate to the prompt you have chosen. These objects (can be digital images so don’t worry you don’t have a physical object) should be connected to the themes you have studied in TOK. Each school will choose different themes so work closely with your TOK teacher. What is really important here is that you don’t choose a “generic” image. So, a picture of a random tree you found on a google  image search would not be a good object. Instead the picture should be of a specific object that is somehow connected to a wider issue in the real world. Your school will decide how to set up the actual exhibition but you will be assessed on a 950 word report.

TOK Essay Writing Tips: Conclusion

In conclusion, don’t be wary of TOK. There’s  a good chance you may find this course confusing at times but this is the nature of the course and I advise you to embrace the confusion. I know this sounds ridiculous but we have to accept that there are many ways to approach thinking about knowledge. And you may approach knowledge differently depending upon the context of what you are learning and from who you are learning. As a student I advise you to start thinking about how you see the world. How do you “know” what you “know”? What has influenced this? In most of our classes we want certainty and TOK is about developing our critical thinking skills rather than finding specific answers. As I said earlier this can be challenging as we are used to courses which have a significant amount of content to learn and TOK is not about memorizing content. In many ways we are examining the journey and not so concerned with the destination.