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Organization of the ERQ

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  • Organization of the ERQ

Writing ERQs (extended response questions) is an important skill for IB assessment.  It is important that all essays address the three key assessment standards: understanding of psychological concepts and research, critical thinking about research, and effective communication.

The first tip is this – you must write in paragraphs.  All essays should have an introduction that frames the response, supporting paragraphs, and then a conclusion.  A surprising number of students on the exam write only one long paragraph.  This is poor organization of the response and leads to lower marks.  Below is an explanation of what the paragraphs should include.

The introductory paragraph

Strategies to avoid for the introduction

  • Don’t list all you know. For example, don’t say that there are several examples of how biological factors influence behaviour and then outline three or four only to say: But for this essay, I will be discussing something else. Listing unnecessary information lowers marks both in the SAQs and the ERQs.
  • Do not explain the command term. Do not write Discuss means that I will have to ….
  • Do not outline the principles of the approach. This is often totally irrelevant to the question.

text

What should students do?  The introduction should accomplish three things:

  • State the position with regards to the question.
  • Outline how the question will be answered.
  • Define any important terms.

Let’s look at the question:  Discuss the role of one or more genes in explaining one behaviour.

One biological theory of depression is genetic inheritance. Genetic inheritance is the theory that abnormal behaviour, in this case, depression, can be passed down through genes. Psychologists believe that if an individual has a specific combination of genes, they are more vulnerable to depression; life stressors – particularly aversive childhood experiences – can cause the genes to be expressed, leading to the disorder.  Originally, most research on the genetics of depression was done using family and twin studies; today, since the Human Genome Project, research has focused on specific genes. This essay will discuss Kendler's twin study and Caspi's linkage study which argues that the 5HTT gene may play a key role in depression.

From this introduction, the examiner knows the topic of the essay, the choice of behaviour, the position of the essay, and which examples will be used. 

Supporting paragraphs

Good writers have focused paragraphs.  This means that each paragraph should have only one argument or idea. The examiner should be able to read only the first sentence of each of your paragraphs (called topic sentences) and clearly understand the argument of your essay. The remainder of each paragraph "unpacks" that topic sentence and provides evidence to support it.

It is also good practice to write one paragraph that is descriptive - that is, the evidence that is going to be used to support the argument - and the next paragraph that is critical thinking.  This strategy will help you to see whether you actually have adequate critical thinking in your essay. 

For example, for the essay above, these would be good topic sentences:

Paragraph 1: Kendler found that MZ twins had higher concordance rates of depression than DZ twins, leading him to conclude that there is a genetic link to depression.

Paragraph 2: Although twin studies are often seen as highly reliable, they have some serious limitations.

Paragraph 3: Caspi carried out a study that showed that having the gene is not enough - and that environmental stressors may be necessary for a gene to be expressed.

Paragraph 4: Although Caspi's study shows support for a genetic argument, it is also based on several assumptions that may not be correct.

Paragraph 5: Psychologists have found that there may be several genes linked to depression, but there are still many areas of uncertainty in genetic research.

Notice also that the pattern here is one paragraph of evidence – one paragraph of critical thinking.  In this way, the essay also balances out description and analysis. In addition, note that paragraph 5 is the "discussion" paragraph - this will be the paragraph that most directly addresses the command term.

PEEL

One way to think about how to construct a paragraph is to use the acronym: PEEL.

Point:  What is the main idea of this paragraph?  What point are you trying to make?

Evidence:  What is the study or theory that is being used to support this point?  Is it significantly different from the last evidence that you provided? 

Explanation:  Analyse and evaluate your evidence.  How does this support your point?  What are the questions or issues that remain?

Link:  Link the argument back to the question or the position of the essay.

So, if we look at the first paragraph above, this is what it might look like.

Kendler found that MZ twins had higher concordance rates of depression than DZ twins, leading him to conclude that there is a genetic link to depression. Using the Swedish Twin Registry, Kendler looked at over 40.000 twins and found that the concordance rate for female MZ twins was 44% and for DZ only 16%.  In males, the rates were 30% and 10%. When looking at the results of identical twins we can firstly see that the percentage is not 100%. This indicates that if depression is genetic, having the genes for depression is not enough to make someone depressed. The fact that the MZ twins may not both have depression may have less to do with genes and more to do with the stressors that they have personally experienced. Inheriting the genes does not mean that the person will automatically develop depression. The results for the DZ twins being lower than the MZ twins support the theory of genetic inheritance because fraternal twins are much less likely to have the same genes.

    Conclusions

    Especially on a timed essay, there is not a lot of time to write a long, thoughtful conclusion to the essay.  However, on many exams, students write over a page of conclusions!  Not only is this not necessary, it often does not add anything to the essay.

    The conclusion should simply be a restatement of the argument and the whole paragraph may be simply 2 - 3 sentences.  No new research or theories should be included in this part of the response.  When new ideas are introduced and not linked to the question, this once again demonstrates a lack of focus.