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Students aiming to maximise their IA score often turn to personal tutors for support. A skilled IB tutor can provide valuable guidance, constructive feedback, and clear direction. However, it’s essential to recognise the boundaries of this support. Crossing them can risk academic dishonesty, which may not only compromise your grade but could also lead to failing the course. Understanding both how your tutor can help, and the limits of that help, is therefore crucial.
IB IA Tutors
Your IA must be fully your own work. Tutors can guide, suggest, and provide feedback, but the decisions, ranging from your research question to the evidence you include and the conclusions you draw, must all come from you. Their role is to support your process, not replace your independent thinking.
Tutors can help in several important ways. They may guide topic selection by showing you how to narrow down a broad idea, highlighting what makes a strong research question, and offering feedback on whether a project is realistic. They can clarify the IB requirements by explaining assessment rubrics and breaking down what examiners look for in each criterion. Tutors may also suggest how to structure your IA, helping you think through the introduction, methodology, analysis, and conclusion so your work flows logically. In addition, they can point you toward research resources and give general feedback on your draft, highlighting strengths and areas for improvement. Above all, they act as mentors who encourage independence, supporting your decision-making process while ensuring you remain in control of your work.
At the same time, there are clear limits to what tutors can do in order to preserve academic honesty. A tutor must not write any part of your IA, choose or change your research question, provide exact data, analysis, or arguments to include, or rewrite sections of your IA with “better” phrasing. They also cannot select your sources for you or directly edit or redraft your work. These restrictions are essential, because the purpose of the IB is to assess your ability to think critically, conduct research, and communicate your own ideas.
| Tutors can: | Tutors cannot: |
|---|---|
| Suggest ways to refine or narrow a research question | Decide or change your research question for you |
| Explain the IA criteria and what examiners look for | Tell you exactly what to write to achieve top marks |
| Recommend general places to look for research (databases, journals, source types) | Provide you with specific sources or write your research section |
| Offer feedback on structure and flow of ideas | Reorganize or rewrite your work directly |
| Point out where analysis could be deeper | Do the analysis for you or give you the exact conclusions |
| Provide feedback on clarity, grammar, and presentation | Directly edit or rephrase your sentences |
We hope you found this post helpful. If you'd like reach your full potential and score top grades in your IAs, you can submit your coursework for review by an official IB examiner.
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