What is 'a completed draft' and how do you comment on it?

As a supervisor you are only allowed to comment (i.e. give advice and guidance) on the one completed first draft. During the research and writing process you will probably have seen and advised and discussed parts of the essay with the student as it develops but these do not count as a completed draft. The first draft is the first complete version of the finished essay and any 'draft' from then on counts as a completed draft. This means that if the student then changed nothing it could still be sent to the IB as an assessable essay. You must not correct the completed draft of the essay or tell the student about specific errors or omissions and you must only comment on one draft. So what is the best way to proceed? What I would suggest is that you actually mark the essay according to the four criteria (A - D) so that you can determine for yourself the strengths and weaknesses of the essay but do not give these marks to the student. Use the information given for each criterion under the assessment criteria to draw up a list of ways in which the essay could be improved then make suggestions to the student. These might be in the form of bullet points to aid the discussion with the student. The skill is to guide the student towards making improvements without actually doing it for them. Comments like, "I think you should check carefully all the formulas you have given" or "You need to place more emphasis on why the topic is worthy of investigation" are acceptable. Comments like " the formula of glucose that you have written on page 6 is wrong" or "why don't you add xxxx as an example of an unresolved question in the conclusion" are not acceptable as this is doing the essay for the student.