literature review for epq

Press ESC to close

How to Conduct an Effective Literature Review for Your EPQ: A Step-by-Step Guide

backlinkworks
Writing Articles & Reviews
September 23, 2023

Introduction

A literature review is an important component of any Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) project. IT involves researching and analyzing existing literature and scholarly works relevant to your topic. A well-conducted literature review can provide a solid foundation for your EPQ, helping you to identify gaps in the research, establish the context for your study, and build a strong theoretical framework.

Why is a literature review important?

Conducting an effective literature review is crucial for several reasons:

Identifying existing knowledge: A literature review enables you to familiarize yourself with the existing research and theories related to your topic. This helps you understand what is already known, what gaps exist in the literature, and how your project can contribute to the field.
Guiding your research: A well-constructed literature review can help you determine the direction and scope of your EPQ project. IT serves as a roadmap, assisting you in identifying the key concepts, theories, and methodologies that are relevant to your research.
Building a theoretical framework: A literature review allows you to identify and analyze different theories and perspectives related to your topic. This helps you establish a strong theoretical foundation for your project and provides a basis for your analysis and interpretation of the data.
Supporting your arguments: By citing relevant literature, you can support your arguments and claims with evidence from authoritative sources. This enhances the credibility and reliability of your EPQ project.

Step-by-Step Guide to Conducting an Effective Literature Review

1. define your research question.

The first step in conducting a literature review is to clearly define your research question or objective. This will help you narrow down your search and focus on the most relevant sources.

2. Develop a search strategy

Once you have defined your research question, you need to develop a search strategy to identify relevant literature. Start by brainstorming keywords and phrases related to your topic. Use synonyms and variations of these terms to broaden your search.

Next, identify the most appropriate sources for your research. These may include academic databases, libraries, online journals, books, and relevant websites. Consider both primary and secondary sources to ensure comprehensive coverage of your topic.

3. Conduct a literature search

Using your search strategy, begin exploring the identified sources. Start with academic databases like PubMed, Google Scholar, or JSTOR, as they provide access to a wide range of scholarly articles and research papers.

Make use of advanced search tools and filters to refine your search results. Take note of the relevant sources, including the title, authors, and abstracts, for further evaluation and analysis.

4. Evaluate the literature

After conducting the initial search, IT is important to critically evaluate the literature to determine its relevance, reliability, and credibility. Consider the following criteria:

Publication date: Ensure that the sources you use are up-to-date and relevant to your research. However, older articles can be included to provide historical context or trace the development of a particular theory.
Author credentials: Evaluate the expertise, qualifications, and reputation of the authors. Look for authors who are recognized authorities in the field.
Research design and methodology: Assess the rigor and validity of the research methods used in the studies. Consider whether the sample size, data collection techniques, and analysis methods are appropriate and reliable.
Consistency and relevance: Look for common themes, findings, and arguments across the literature. Ensure that the sources you select directly address your research question and contribute to the overall understanding of your topic.

5. Organize and synthesize the literature

Once you have evaluated the literature, IT is important to organize and synthesize the information. Create a clear structure for your literature review, categorizing the sources according to themes, theories, or methodologies.

Identify the main arguments, theories, and findings from each source, and compare and contrast them. Look for patterns and connections that emerge across the literature. This will help you build a coherent narrative and identify any gaps or debates in the existing research.

6. Write your literature review

With a clear synthesis of the literature, you can now begin writing your literature review. Follow a logical structure, starting with an introduction that provides an overview of the topic and states your research question or objective.

Organize the body of your literature review according to the themes, theories, or methodologies you have identified. Present the key findings and arguments from each source, critically analyzing and synthesizing the information.

Finally, conclude your literature review by summarizing the main points and highlighting the gaps or areas for further research. Make sure to cite all the sources you have referenced in a consistent citation style, such as APA or MLA.

A well-conducted literature review is a crucial step in any EPQ project. IT helps you identify and analyze the existing knowledge related to your topic, guides your research, builds a theoretical framework, and supports your arguments with credible evidence. By following the step-by-step guide outlined in this article, you can conduct an effective literature review that enhances the quality and impact of your EPQ project.

Q: How many sources should I include in my literature review?

The number of sources you include in your literature review largely depends on the scope of your research and the depth of existing literature on your topic. Aim for a balance between comprehensiveness and relevance. Include enough sources to demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the topic, but also focus on the most influential and recent works.

Q: How do I avoid plagiarism in my literature review?

To avoid plagiarism, IT is essential to properly attribute the ideas, opinions, and findings of other authors. Make sure to cite all the sources you have referenced in a consistent citation style, such as APA or MLA. Paraphrase and summarize the information in your own words, and use quotation marks for direct quotations. Always provide a clear citation whenever you use someone else’s work.

Q: Can I include non-academic sources in my literature review?

While academic sources are generally preferred for a literature review, IT might be relevant to include some non-academic sources, such as government reports, industry publications, or reputable websites. However, ensure that these sources are reliable, authoritative, and directly contribute to your research question.

Q: How do I determine the quality of a source?

When evaluating the quality of a source, consider the publication date, author credentials, research design and methodology, consistency and relevance to your research question. Look for peer-reviewed articles from reputable journals and books from renowned publishers. Assess the reliability and credibility of the sources by checking the reputation of the authors and the publication venues.

Q: Does the literature review come before or after the data collection?

The literature review usually comes before data collection in the research process. IT provides the theoretical and conceptual background for your study, helping you design your research methodology and data collection instruments. However, IT is important to continuously review and update the literature as your project progresses, as new studies and findings might emerge.

Introduction to Maya 3D: A Beginner’s Guide

10 best free one page wordpress themes for a stunning website.

Shocking Secret Revealed: How Article PHP ID Can Transform Your Website!

Uncovering the Top Secret Tricks for Mastering SPIP PHP – You Won’t Believe What You’re Missing Out On!

Unlocking the Secrets to Boosting Your Alexa Rank, Google Pagerank, and Domain Age – See How You Can Dominate the Web!

The Ultimate Collection of Free Themes for Google Sites

Discover the Shocking Truth About Your Website’s Ranking – You Won’t Believe What This Checker Reveals!

Explore topics.

Backlinks (2,425)
Blog (2,744)
Computers (5,318)
Digital Marketing (7,741)
Internet (6,340)
Website (4,705)
Wordpress (4,705)
Writing Articles & Reviews (4,208)

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, automatically generate references for free.

Knowledge Base
Dissertation
What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples

Published on 22 February 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 7 June 2022.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research.

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

Search for relevant literature
Evaluate sources
Identify themes, debates and gaps
Outline the structure
Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarise sources – it analyses, synthesises, and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Be assured that you'll submit flawless writing. Upload your document to correct all your mistakes.

Why write a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1: search for relevant literature, step 2: evaluate and select sources, step 3: identify themes, debates and gaps, step 4: outline your literature review’s structure, step 5: write your literature review, frequently asked questions about literature reviews, introduction.

Quick Run-through
Step 1 & 2

When you write a dissertation or thesis, you will have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and scholarly context
Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
Position yourself in relation to other researchers and theorists
Show how your dissertation addresses a gap or contributes to a debate

You might also have to write a literature review as a stand-alone assignment. In this case, the purpose is to evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of scholarly debates around a topic.

The content will look slightly different in each case, but the process of conducting a literature review follows the same steps. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

The only proofreading tool specialized in correcting academic writing

The academic proofreading tool has been trained on 1000s of academic texts and by native English editors. Making it the most accurate and reliable proofreading tool for students.

Correct my document today

Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research objectives and questions .

If you are writing a literature review as a stand-alone assignment, you will have to choose a focus and develop a central question to direct your search. Unlike a dissertation research question, this question has to be answerable without collecting original data. You should be able to answer it based only on a review of existing publications.

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research topic. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list if you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some databases to search for journals and articles include:

Your university’s library catalogue
Google Scholar
Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
EconLit (economics)
Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can use boolean operators to help narrow down your search:

Read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

To identify the most important publications on your topic, take note of recurring citations. If the same authors, books or articles keep appearing in your reading, make sure to seek them out.

You probably won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on the topic – you’ll have to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your questions.

For each publication, ask yourself:

What question or problem is the author addressing?
What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
What are the key theories, models and methods? Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
What are the results and conclusions of the study?
How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
How does the publication contribute to your understanding of the topic? What are its key insights and arguments?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible, and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can find out how many times an article has been cited on Google Scholar – a high citation count means the article has been influential in the field, and should certainly be included in your literature review.

The scope of your review will depend on your topic and discipline: in the sciences you usually only review recent literature, but in the humanities you might take a long historical perspective (for example, to trace how a concept has changed in meaning over time).

Remember that you can use our template to summarise and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using!

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It’s important to keep track of your sources with references to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography, where you compile full reference information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

You can use our free APA Reference Generator for quick, correct, consistent citations.

To begin organising your literature review’s argument and structure, you need to understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

Most research has focused on young women.
There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
But there is still a lack of robust research on highly-visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat – this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organising the body of a literature review. You should have a rough idea of your strategy before you start writing.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarising sources in order.

Try to analyse patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organise your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text, your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

If you are writing the literature review as part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate your central problem or research question and give a brief summary of the scholarly context. You can emphasise the timeliness of the topic (“many recent studies have focused on the problem of x”) or highlight a gap in the literature (“while there has been much research on x, few researchers have taken y into consideration”).

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, make sure to follow these tips:

Summarise and synthesise: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole.
Analyse and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole.
Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources.
Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transitions and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts.

In the conclusion, you should summarise the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasise their significance.

If the literature review is part of your dissertation or thesis, reiterate how your research addresses gaps and contributes new knowledge, or discuss how you have drawn on existing theories and methods to build a framework for your research. This can lead directly into your methodology section.

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a dissertation , thesis, research paper , or proposal .

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

To familiarise yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

McCombes, S. (2022, June 07). What is a Literature Review? | Guide, Template, & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 14 May 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/thesis-dissertation/literature-review/

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Other students also liked, how to write a dissertation proposal | a step-by-step guide, what is a theoretical framework | a step-by-step guide, what is a research methodology | steps & tips.

The Open University
Guest user / Sign out
Study with The Open University

My OpenLearn Profile

Personalise your OpenLearn profile, save your favourite content and get recognition for your learning

EPQs: writing up your dissertation

The Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) is an opportunity for you to work independently on a topic that really interests you or that you think is important. It is equivalent to an A-level qualification. These articles are designed to help you if you are enrolled on an EPQ.

See previous article in series: Finding and using evidence

Writing up your dissertation.

Being able to communicate well is an essential skill for both university and working life. One of the aims of the EPQ is to help you develop your skills in using different communication tools, so you can communicate what you have found clearly and appropriately for different audiences.

Communication is also a vital part of the research cycle. The progress of research thrives on the exchange, review and discussion of ideas. Writing is one of the ways in which we communicate what we have found out and share it with others.

Sharing the results of your research by writing well and effectively gives your readers the opportunity to learn from the work you have done.

This article offers suggestions and support for developing your skills in writing in the academic style that is needed for your EPQ dissertation.

Getting organised .

It’s worth considering a few practical points first. The start of writing is a good time to gather your material together and get yourself organised.

Don’t lose your work
Timings & deadlines
Organise your records
Laying out the document
Tables, graphs and charts

You don’t want to find yourself a few days – or hours – from the submission deadline when a computer breakdown or accident means you lose everything you’ve done.

It has happened before, and you don’t want it to happen to you!

Build a routine for backups into your work pattern. For example, when you sit down to write, save a copy (named, for example, Version 1, Version 2 ... Version 25 ...) of the existing document before you make any changes.

And back up your backup. Once a week, make a backup copy of your files (your dissertation, your notes and the resources you have collected) to an external hard drive, memory stick or cloud storage.

Work out how much time you have to write your dissertation, and how much time you want to allocate to each section. (There’ll be more on this shortly under ‘Structuring the dissertation – Start with the structure’.)

Make sure you know – and have written down! – the deadlines for submitting your dissertation, including deadlines for any draft versions your teacher might want to see. Use these to help plan your writing time.

There are many tools to choose from to keep yourself on track. For example, you could create a table with a list of tasks.

Or you could make a simple Gantt chart, using a spreadsheet. If you use Microsoft Excel, it has some Gantt chart templates. The advantage of a Gantt chart is that it makes it easier to see how you can overlap some tasks, and you can mark important milestones such as submission deadlines .

As you have gone through the process of collecting and analysing the evidence you need to answer your research question, you will have gathered records of:

what you looked for (the search terms you used in your searches)
where you looked (search engines, websites, etc.)
what you read / watched / listened to (academic papers, articles, videos, podcasts, etc.)
the notes you made on your reading, listening and watching
the data you have gathered.

All these sources contribute to the content of your written dissertation. Hopefully you have good records, but if you got a bit behind, now is the time to sort them out and remind yourself what you did and what you found out.

If you need a reminder of what information you need to keep, look back at Article 2 – Finding and using evidence .

Organising your records and keeping a note of the sources you mention in the text as you write helps you build a comprehensive reference list.

There is more information on how to set out your reference list later in this article (see ‘Structuring the dissertation – Referencing styles’ ).

Laying out your document in a clear and neat style helps make your readers’ life easier.

For the text , use a classic font such as Arial, Helvetica or Times New Roman. It’s best to avoid quirky fonts such as Comic Sans, or difficult to read fonts such as Lucida handwriting.

For easy reading, the font shouldn’t be too small. 11 or 12 point is a popular choice for the main (or body) text, which is usually black in colour. You can use larger fonts for headings and sub-headings, and perhaps make them bold or a different colour.

Generous margins also make the document easier to read. As a guide, around half the area of the page should be white space; on an A4 page, that means margins of about 2cm all round.

Use the paragraph styling tool . It’s well worth investing some time learning to use paragraph styling in Microsoft Word and Mac Pages ; it can really speed up the creation of long documents and help you produce good-looking work.

This tool gives you control over the appearance of the text in your document. For example, you can use it to include automatic numbering for your headings ( Word or Pages ). This means you don’t have to manually change all the numbering if you insert a new heading or delete one that is no longer useful. You can also use automatic numbering for figure and table captions. Or, if you decide you don’t like the font you have used, you can change it in the paragraph style and it will be changed throughout the document.

Some kinds of evidence – such as numeric data – work well when displayed as graphs, charts and tables.

Readers should be able to make sense of the graph, chart or table without explanation.

Look at Table 2. Is it clear what information the creator wanted to share?

A better example can be seen below in Table 3:

Graphs and charts need titles too. They should also have axis titles (naming what is plotted on each axis, with the relevant units) and axis labels (the values plotted).

When it comes to plotting graphs, using different shapes or line styles can help readers distinguish different data points or collections of data on a single graph. You can use contrasting colours, but keep in mind that too many colours can be distracting for the reader. And some readers – for example, people who are colour-blind or have vision problems – might not be able to distinguish between certain colours, so choose carefully.

Look at Figure 3. Does it have all the elements of a good graph? Could anything be improved?

Comparison of four search terms used in Google in the UK from Jan to May 2021.

This has many of the requirements of a good graph. The title explains what the graph is about, the axes are labelled and the four search terms are each given their own colour, with a key to show which is which.

It could be made better by:

making the graph larger, so that the four lines are more separate
choosing different colours – the orange for ‘Perseverance’ and the yellow for ‘astrobiology’ are difficult to distinguish from each other.

Evidently, something interesting must have happened in mid-February to cause this spike in searches – you might remember that on 18 February 2021, the NASA Mars Perseverance Rover mission landed on Mars!

Structuring the dissertation .

Facing a blank page and the prospect of writing 5000 or so words can feel daunting. But you can structure the way you write to help make the task easier.

Start with the structure
Facing the blank page
The narrative arc
Finishing things off
Referencing styles

Starting with the structure will help you consider how you want the dissertation to flow, and how to allocate your time and effort.

This example, taken from the Edexcel documentation, gives a suggested word count for the different sections of a ‘research review’ dissertation. All the exam boards publish their requirements, so you should check the requirements for your board and the type of EPQ you are doing .

A ‘research review’ dissertation would probably follow something like the structure above. For other kinds of project, check with your teacher or look at the exam board’s requirements. Knowing what structure the exam board is expecting helps you to know where to focus your effort.

In Table 4, you can see that the biggest section of the dissertation is the discussion/development/analysis of the argument, so it would make sense to spend the largest part of your writing time on this section. Look back at the Gantt chart under ‘Getting organised – Tables, graphs and charts’ for an example of time allocated in this way.

You’ve opened a new document. You know the sections you need to include.

How do you get started on the sentences that will fill the gaps in between? Two researchers offered suggestions from their experience.

Robert, a space scientist, says he usually works out the first paragraph in his head before sitting down to write.

Ann’s summary

This is how Charlotte described her approach. First step, open a Word document!

Second step, write titles and sub-headings on the page. These can be working titles that you can come back to and polish once you have developed the document. But getting that structure down on the page is a key step for Charlotte in building the document and working out how the manuscript is going to flow. Once she’s broken the document up into sections, it feels much less daunting for her. Instead of starting at word one of six thousand, she’s working on smaller, more manageable chunks – word one of a hundred, or two hundred.

Step three is to write down the aims, objectives and scope of the document. And then she goes on to write the conclusions. And she says yes, that’s not a typo – if you’ve done a good job of researching the topic, developing the aims and objectives and making your notes, then writing the conclusion first should be relatively easy. The benefit of writing the end of your manuscript before the beginning is that you’re less likely to go off on tangents when you’re writing the rest of the manuscript, because you know where you’re heading.

If you feel you’ve thoroughly researched your topic and you’re still finding it hard to work out what your conclusions are, then it may be a good idea to turn your research notes into a presentation, during which you can ask yourself ‘what key message do I want the audience to walk away with?’, and that will be your conclusion.

Step five: write the remaining sections of the dissertation, justifying and building your arguments for each conclusion.

Charlotte’s main points

Charlotte’s steps are:

Open a Word document!
Write titles and sub-headings on the page.
Write down the aims, objectives and scope of the document.
Write the conclusion – ask yourself ‘what key message do I want the audience to walk away with?’
Write the remaining sections, justifying and building your arguments for each conclusion.

Headings and sub-headings

Charlotte described how she likes to set up the headings and sub-headings that structure her writing, even though she knows they might change as the document develops.

Using descriptive headings, such as ‘The history of ...’ tells the reader what to expect in that section or chapter. This is sometimes called ‘signposting’, because the headings and sub-headings guide the reader around your work.

As well as descriptive headings, you can number your headings and sub-headings:

Section 1: An introduction to…
Section 1.1 : The history of ...

This means you can refer the reader back and forth (e.g. ‘see Section 1.2’), which cuts down repetition and wasted words.

Both approaches have the merit of getting something on to the blank page, which makes it look much less scary.

Whether you start with an opening paragraph, a set of headings, or another method that works for you, getting those first few words on the page is one of the biggest hurdles to clear.

Narrative – the story thread that runs through any piece of work we create – is important in any piece of writing. Stories keep people’s attention, as storytellers have known for hundreds of years. Writers, broadcasters and podcasters continue to make use of this fact today.

One way to think about how you shape your story is to consider its narrative arc. Yes, even the most ‘science-y’ of dissertations has a story.

Click on the crosses on Figure 6 to find out more about the components of the narrative arc.

Figure 6 The narrative arc

Points on the narrative arc

Description : A parabolic curve representing the narrative arc of a story. The first half of the curve rises to a peak, showing the points that build interest in the story. The second half falls back to the baseline, showing how we reflect on the details of the story and bring it to a close.

– In the Introduction , attract the reader’s attention at the start, perhaps by telling them what got you interested in the question; a personal interest, an ambition or a desire to know more about a topic.

– In the Introduction , describe the journey to your research question. Make sure you do actually tell your reader what your question is (you’d be surprised how often people forget that!)

Information

– In the Research Review section, you show the reader how you found your evidence; tell them about the keywords you used, the mindmaps, flowcharts, tables you made; what information was important and what was not; what stayed in and what didn’t.

– This is your analysis of the material you found, showing how you pulled together the information you uncovered in your review and what it meant for your question. However, this isn’t an absolute rule; where you put the analysis depends on the kind of dissertation you are writing.

– Tell the reader what you found out and how it relates to what is already known.

– Use the Conclusion to round off your story. What’s the answer to your research question? What did you discover? What’s still not known?

There are a couple of sections of the dissertation that are best dealt with towards the end of the writing process: abstract and bibliography.

The abstract

At the beginning of the dissertation, you should provide a short summary or abstract.

An abstract is like a trailer for a film or television programme. It gives the reader a sense of what’s in the dissertation. However, unlike a trailer, it’s OK to give away the ending! Someone who only reads the abstract, and never looks at the dissertation, should still understand the scope of your work.

For this reason, it’s easier to write the abstract towards the end of your writing time, when you have a complete picture of your work in your mind.

The abstract is usually quite short (perhaps only 200 words) and is written in one paragraph. That’s not much space, so what should you include?

A typical abstract would tell the reader:

why you did this research – the question you set out to answer
how you did the research – the methods you used to collect the data and where you looked for it
what you found out – a summary of your main findings
the key message – the answer to your question; if your readers could remember just one thing from your dissertation, this would be it.

One way to approach writing the abstract is to read through your dissertation section by section. For each section, write one or two sentences that summarise the main point. Click on ‘example’ to see what we mean.

Using Google Scholar, I searched for articles using different combinations of these search terms: ‘alternative medicine’, ‘complementary medicine’, understanding, knowledge, motivation, CAM. I filtered the results to keep only articles that related to the use of CAM by young people. I defined ‘young’ as people under the age of 25. I downloaded twenty complete papers, articles and other resources from open access sources and the Open University research repository.

Use of CAM by young people has increased since 2000. Young women use CAM more than young men. The most common sources for getting information about CAM are friends and family and social media.

Key message

The best way to provide information for young people about CAM is through social media.

Take away the headings and polish the sentences and you have an abstract:

The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is growing rapidly among young people, but the usefulness and safety of some therapies is controversial. Therefore, I investigated the question: what are the best places to reach young people with information about CAM? Using Google Scholar, I searched for articles using different combinations of these search terms: ‘alternative medicine’, ‘complementary medicine’, understanding, knowledge, motivation, CAM. I filtered the results to keep only articles that related to the use of CAM by young people. I defined ‘young’ as people under the age of 25. My search found twenty relevant papers, articles and other resources, which I downloaded from open access sources and the Open University research repository. My results show that young people’s most common sources for information about CAM are friends and family and social media. Therefore, I believe that using social media is the best way to provide information about CAM for young people.

The bibliography or reference list

The last thing to include in your dissertation is the bibliography or reference list * .

Your reference list shows the people who read (and mark!) your dissertation how well you have researched your subject and how your arguments are supported by evidence from other people’s research.

It is also evidence of how you have been open and honest in your work. Readers can use it to find the sources that you used and check that you have read and used them correctly.

Using your reference list, a reader should be able to find that source for themselves if they want to follow up an idea or check something you have written. Including a reference list helps you avoid plagiarism (passing off someone else’s work as your own), because readers can check the original source if they have any doubts.

If you need a reminder of what information you should keep, look back at ‘Finding and using evidence – Keeping track’ .

* A reference list is a list of all references to other people’s work that you have mentioned in your dissertation. A bibliography is a list of references, plus the background readings or other material that you have read but not actually mentioned.

The Open University Library Services’ Referencing and plagiarism page has lots of help and pointers to further information about references and referencing styles.

If you go on to study at university, and have to write essays, assignments and reports, you will be asked to set out – or ‘style’ – reference lists in a specific way. There are many different referencing styles; which one you are asked to use will depend on the subject you are studying and the university’s requirements.

For the EPQ, check the requirements of your exam board or ask your teacher what these are.

Even if you aren’t asked to use a specific style, you should aim to include as much information about the sources as possible. The minimum information would be:

the authors’ (or creators’) names
the year the source was published
the title of the article or book chapter, or the name of the artwork, film or video
the title of the journal or the book in which the article/chapter appeared
for books – the name of the publisher
for online sources – the name of the website and the page on which the article appeared, the URL of the website, and the date on which you read the article*.

*The date you found the article is important for online sources, as websites sometimes disappear or are changed. If the reader can’t find the same article but knows when you found it, that suggests they can trust the source.

These examples are laid out in the Harvard referencing style, which is a style used in many university subjects.

Books and ebooks

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) Title . Edition if later than first. Place of publication: publisher. Series and volume number if relevant.

Mukherjee, S. (2011) The Emperor of all Maladies . London: Fourth Estate.

Article from an academic journal

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) ‘Title of article’, Title of Journal , volume number (issue number), page reference. Doi: doi number if available OR Available at: URL (Accessed date)

Ungar, S. (2008) ‘Global bird flu communication: hot crisis and media reassurance’, Science Communication , 29(4), 472-497. DOI: 10.1177/1075547008316219

Article from a newspaper or magazine

Surname, Initial. (Year of publication) ‘Title of article’, Title of Newspaper , Day and month, Page reference if available. Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Rice-Oxley, M. (2021) ‘Do good things come to those who wait?’, The Guardian , 26 February. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/26/do-good-things-come-to-those-who-wait (Accessed 26 February 2021).

Organisation (Year that the page was last updated) Title of web page . Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

BBC Online (2020) How New Zealand relied on science and empathy . Available at: bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-52344299 (Accessed 17 September 2020).

Writing clearly .

Good writing takes time, effort and energy. Being able to produce clear, readable, logical and well-argued pieces of writing is important in both university and in your working life.

Precise & concise
Keep it simple
A word about style
Quoting others

Blaise Pascal was a seventeenth-century mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher and writer. He once wrote:

‘ Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte ’ .

–Blaise Pascal, Provincial Letters, Letter XVI, December 1656.

Translation: ‘I wrote this very long [letter] because I didn’t have the time to make it shorter’.

What do you think Pascal meant by this?

Claire, whose research looks for evidence of how we might ‘ sniff’ for life , produced a mind map of what she thinks Pascal meant (Figure 9). The audio below describes her process.

Claire’s mind map takes us on quite a journey. Starting from Pascal’s premise that it’s better to write short than long, slower than quicker, makes her think about the need for concision, to look for concise words, words that are specific and measured, not being confusing, the need to choose the right word. Not always easy in English, where one word can have a variety of meanings.

She suggest perhaps using a thesaurus, but that could lead down the pathway of having too many words to choose from and not being able to decide which one to pick. Thinking about the dissertation, she introduces a word we all dread – waffling! No one wants to be a waffler, and giving too much information might make your readers’ heads explode.

And yet we must explain our concepts, because we want our writing to be understood by everyone but that means a balance with explaining too much. We need to give enough detail to make our point understood, and scientific, if it’s that kind of research question, without being too complicated. All in all, it comes down to the need to simplify.

More tips from Ann

As Pascal – and Claire – suggest, taking out what isn’t needed is as important as putting in what is.

Writing clearly and to the point takes time, effort and energy. Allow yourself plenty of time to draft, review, get feedback, edit ... draft again, review again, get more feedback, edit again … … check, proof-read, finish.

As we established earlier, your dissertation will have a word allowance. EdExcel, for example, suggests a research review dissertation should be around 6000 words. That sounds like a lot, but then, you’ve done a lot of work that needs to be included.

The exact figure will depend on the exam board’s requirements and the kind of EPQ you have carried out, so check before you start writing, or ask your teacher.

The best writers keep things as simple as possible. It’s a way of being kind to your readers and making the task of reading easier.

However, keeping things simple isn’t simple. As Steve Jobs, the designer and co-founder of Apple said: ‘Simple can be harder than complex: you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple’. The same applies to writing.

When you’ve done a complex piece of work, it’s tempting to think you can only describe it in complex language. But you should try to avoid the pitfall of using over-complicated language. You don’t want to run the risk of sounding pompous or making your text too difficult to understand.

You’ve almost certainly come across simple questions with unnecessarily complicated answers before. Here’s an example. Which is the best answer to this question?

The Up Goer Five challenge

To practise writing in simple language, you can take the Up Goer Five challenge. This is a project by the artist Randall Monroe, creator of XKCD .

The challenge is to explain a hard idea using only the ‘ten hundred’ most common words in the English language. As an example, how might we explain ‘astrobiology’?:

We think about where we might find living things. We take stuff from places – dry places, cold places, hot places – and we put it in stuff that we think has what living things need to grow. We wait, then we use a seeing-small-things tool to look for the living things. At the moment, we look at stuff from here but one day, we want to look at stuff from other stars.

Have a go at using the Up Goer Five text editor (which has a link to the ten hundred most common words ) to explain an idea related to your research topic. If you find it tricky to think of an idea, here are a few to get you started:

global warming and its consequences
what causes earthquakes
the problems caused by the misuse of antibiotics.

You wouldn’t write your dissertation in this style, but experimenting with writing like this helps develop skills in keeping things simple, avoiding jargon and complicated language and writing in short sentences and paragraphs.

We all write in different ways every day, depending on who we’re writing for. The style of a textbook is different from the style of a WhatsApp message; we write an email to a family member in a different style from the way we would write a personal statement for a university application.

When we write anything, we start by thinking about our readers and the kind of writing they are expecting to see.

For the EPQ dissertation, start by checking the requirements of the exam board you are studying with. It is very likely that the exam board will want the dissertation to be written in a formal style; the kind of style you will have seen in the academic articles and books you drew on in your research.

Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work as your own. It is, essentially, theft of someone else’s work.

Learning alongside a friend, discussing ideas or sharing your thoughts can be helpful and valuable. We have also encouraged you to take notes on everything that you find. So, it is likely that you have ideas you want to present in your report that are not entirely your own.

Plagiarism can occur in a variety of ways. It can mean copying someone else’s text and passing it off as your own, or copying and pasting text/images from a web page and pretending they are your own work. It can also overlap with what is called ‘collusion’, which means collaborating with someone to share work on a task that you are expected to complete by yourself.

Try this interactive resource from OpenLearn to understand some of the challenges and ways to avoid plagiarism. This is aimed at university students, but it will be relevant for the EPQ.

All my own work

Plagiarism comes in all shapes and forms. Step into the shoes of a university student to learn the challenges and temptations facing her during her assignment, and help make it all her own work.

Level: 1 Introductory

There will be points in your dissertation when you want to present ideas that have come from someone else’s work. How can you do this while avoiding plagiarism?

Identify your sources

If you have used an image, graph or chart created by someone else, identify where the image has come from and who made it.

You might remember this image from Article 1 , in the section on dealing with feedback.

This image comes from an online picture library, creazilla.com. They have placed it in the ‘public domain’, which means it can be re-used freely. Show this information in the image caption within your work.

If you create a graph, chart or table yourself, identify the source of the data, as you saw earlier in ‘ Getting organised – Tables, graphs and charts ’.

If you find a phrase or a sentence in a source that helpfully illustrates a point you are trying to make, you can quote that in your work. You must quote it exactly as the authors wrote it. After the quote, you give the name of the author, the date of publication and the page where the quote is from. Then give the full reference in your reference list (see ‘ Structuring the dissertation – Referencing styles ’). For example:

This shows that the format of an infographic can influence people’s responses to the evidence. For example, ‘ graphs commonly used to show descriptive statistics, such as line or area graphs, may also appear “scientific” and create a pseudo sense of trustworthiness ’ (Li et al., 2018, p. 4).

The quote marks (‘…’) show which words are the quote.

We use the Latin phrase ‘et al.’ (meaning ‘and others’) when an article has more than three authors, so that the reader doesn’t have to read through a long list of names. In the reference list, you would see the full list of authors along with the other source details:

Li, N., Brossard, D., Scheufele, D., Wilson, P. and Rose, K. (2018) ‘Communicating data: interactive infographics, scientific data and credibility’, Journal of Science Communication, 17(2), A06. DOI: 10.22323/2.17020206

When you paraphrase, you express an idea that has come from someone else in your own words. You might do this to re-state the idea in simpler language, or to bring together the ideas of several writers on the same topic. Paraphrasing can also help you show that any new ideas you’ve put together from your research are supported by earlier research.

You should show where the ideas you have paraphrased came from, but because you are not directly quoting, you need only give the authors’ names and the date of publication. For example:

My survey of fifty young people aged 16 to 18 showed that their social media posts were most often connected with current events. This is supported by earlier research, which shows that the most common topics for young people’s posts are current events, health and fitness, and celebrity and entertainment news, closely followed by science and technology (Hargittai, Füchslin & Schäfer, 2018) .

In the reference list, you would see:

Hargittai, E., Füchslin, T. and Schäfer, M. (2018) ‘How do young adults engage with science and research on social media?’, Social Media + Society, July-September 2018, 1-10, DOI: 10.1177/205630511879772

Although your dissertation must be all your own work, you can ask for help to review what you have written.

How do you ask for help, then, while keeping the dissertation all your own work and avoiding plagiarism?

Reviews – who and when?

Before you ask someone to review your work, you can check some things for yourself.

Check the spelling and grammar . Microsoft Word has built-in tools, or you can use online ones such as Grammarly . The more technically correct your writing is, the more your reviewers will be able to focus their energy on the content.

Then read it all through yourself . Some people like to read through silently, line by line, others prefer to read the text out loud. You can record yourself and listen back later, or use the Read Aloud function in Word, if you’re using that software. This has the advantage of using a different part of your brain – when you listen, you hear mistakes that you just don’t see in writing.

After you have reviewed it yourself, ask others to do the same. Getting someone else’s feedback on your work is immensely valuable. This is where you can collaborate with friends or classmates – if you ask them to review your work, you can offer to review theirs. And families can help too; even if they don’t know anything about your topic, the questions they ask will help you review your work.

Michael asks for help
Who could you ask for help?

Listen to the audio in the next tab about how Michael, who is a microbiologist, asks for help. When does he do this, and who does he ask?

Michael turns to his colleagues, his family and his senior colleagues at work. He asks for help at different stages: perhaps when he’s struggling a little, when he’s written the first draft and later on at the final stages, when he’s finished editing.

For Michael, feedback is incredibly important, not only for the actual content of the work, but for assessing how easy it is to understand. And he felt it’s always important to consider reviews of our writing from the viewpoint that the reviewer wants to help us improve our work, not criticise it. In terms of who he asks, first he calls on his peers; when he was at school, friends in his class and year, and now his colleagues, who can comment on the content of the work and how easy it is for them to follow. When he was at school, he also turned to his parents. During high school, his parents helped with input on grammar, spelling and how easy it was to understand. Now, his wife performs that role. As he says, by having someone from outside the field review your work, you can gain valuable insights. He also thinks about his seniors – in his current job, his senior colleagues will read multiple drafts of a manuscript before it’s complete. This is always an advantage – it allows him to get input from someone more experienced and means the work is improved.

In terms of when, he asks for help when he’s struggling, perhaps to find the right direction for a piece of work. Discussing the work with a friend or a teacher can start him developing insights on where it should start. Certainly after completing and spell-checking a first draft, he’ll ask for help.

And of course it’s always important to go back and review after editing, because when you change a piece of work, it’s easy to introduce errors, as well as fix them.

Conclusion.

EPQs: designing your research question

You’ve already decided to do an EPQ, so it might seem a little odd to start this resource by asking you to consider why you want to do a research project. People do an EPQ for all sorts of reasons. Why do you want to do an EPQ?

EPQs: finding and using evidence

Finding the evidence that will help you understand a topic or answer a question is an important stage in the research process. And once you have found it, you will need to examine it closely and carefully, to judge how reliable it is and whether it is useful to help you answer your question.

EPQs: why give a presentation?

What are the guidelines for the presentation?

Become an OU student

Ratings & comments, share this free course, copyright information, publication details.

Originally published: Friday, 3 March 2023
Body text - Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 : The Open University
Image 'Graph of the EPQ cycle' - Copyright: Ann Grand
Image 'Comparison of four search terms used in Google in the UK from Jan to May 2021.' - Copyright: Ann Grand
Image 'Robert, a space scientist.' - Copyright: Robert from AstrobiologyOU
Image 'Sketch of Blaise Pascal' - Copyright: Wikimedia Commons
Image 'Photo of Claire' - Copyright: Claire Batty
Image 'Claire's mind map' - Copyright: Claire Batty
Image 'Screenshot from the UpGoer project' - Copyright: XKCD
Image 'Responses to feedback ' - Copyright: creazilla.com Public Domain boy crying angry woman happy man
Image 'Photo of Michael' - Copyright: Michael Macey
Image 'All my own work' - The Open University under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license
Image 'EPQs: why give a presentation?' - Alphabet Yellow © Betta0147 | Dreamstime.com under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license
Image 'EPQs: finding and using evidence' - Alphabet Yellow © Betta0147 | Dreamstime.com under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license
Image 'EPQs: designing your research question' - © Betta0147 | Dreamstime.com under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license

Rate and Review

Rate this article, review this article.

Log into OpenLearn to leave reviews and join in the conversation.

Article reviews

For further information, take a look at our frequently asked questions which may give you the support you need.

Live revision! Join us for our free exam revision livestreams Watch now →

The Professional Teacher
Building Relationships
Developing Careers
Education in the News
Managing Behaviour
Managing Wellbeing
Personalising Learning
Promoting Scholarship
Revision Techniques
Teaching & Learning
Tutorial Ideas

Assessing the EPQ literature review

6th October 2016

Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share by Email

Here's a short, one-sided student-friendly assessment grid to help Level 3 Extended Project students assess the quality of their literature review. All they need to do is simply circle a mark from 0 (non-existent) to 5 (absolutely fantastic) for each of the elements identified as being important in a literature review, and then use those marks to help them plan their next steps. All great for the activity log too!

Ruth Tarrant

Ruth has been Subject Lead in Economics at tutor2u for many years after a career of teaching Economics, Business, Politics and Maths in a range of secondary schools. She is a highly experienced A level Economics Examiner, and also teaches undergraduate Economics on a very part-time basis at the University of Oxford. Ruth is passionate about making economics fun, engaging and accessible.

Future learn course on literacy through film.

24th November 2015

Why the correct punctuation is vital - classroom starters

26th November 2015

Classroom literacy strategy - analytical reading

22nd January 2016

What happens when students rewrite personal statements in total honesty?

25th January 2016

The 15 minute revision book

14th March 2016

Play the Countdown maths game

15th March 2016

Professor Louise Richardson on Desert Island Discs

6th January 2017

Engagement Without Gimmicks

10th January 2017

Our subjects

› Criminology
› Economics
› Geography
› Health & Social Care
› Psychology
› Sociology
› Teaching & learning resources
› Student revision workshops
› Online student courses
› CPD for teachers
› Livestreams
› Teaching jobs

Boston House, 214 High Street, Boston Spa, West Yorkshire, LS23 6AD Tel: 01937 848885

› Contact us
› Terms of use
› Privacy & cookies

Places on our 2024 summer school are filling fast. Don’t miss out. Enrol now to avoid disappointment

600 EPQ Ideas – The Ultimate List For an A*

So, this is it. You’ve decided to do an EPQ and now you’re sitting at a blank computer screen with the entire spectrum of human knowledge at your disposal. You could write about any topic on any subject in the dizzying realms of the known universe. But there’s just one problem… how do you begin?

An EPQ (Extended Project Qualification) allows A-Level students to write either a 5,000 word essay on any question or subject of their choice. Alternatively, students can create an artefact or product, and write a shorter essay explaining it. The EPQ is equivalent to half an A-Level.

EPQs are a fantastic way of proving to universities that you are the best prospective student for them, and that you deserve a place on one of their courses. An EPQ requires a huge amount of independent research (which proves that you can handle university-style work) and allows you to showcase your original thoughts and academic rigour, which is exactly what universities are looking for.

Even more importantly, an EPQ counts for extra UCAS points . This means that if you don’t get the grades you expect at A-Level, a strong EPQ grade could help you meet the conditions of a university place offer. Feeling inspired now? We’ve got 600 EPQ ideas for multiple different subjects, to get those ideas rolling.

What are some top EPQ ideas for a guaranteed A*?

Some strong EPQ ideas for a guaranteed A* are specific and original topics like “Should parents be allowed to genetically change their child’s gender” for an EPQ in medicine, and “Is the media making suicide aspirational?”, for a psychology EPQ.

You could also consider EPQ questions like, “Was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki justified?” for History, and “Should we legalise human organ trade?” for Economics.

We’ve got a list of 600 EPQ ideas for a guaranteed A*, so scroll down and get inspired. We’ve searched all over the internet and interviewed students to get the most pressing topics for each subject. You should just use these EPQ ideas to give you an idea of what you could research, and it’s up to you to come up with your own title.

EPQ Ideas For Medicine

Is gene therapy ethical?
Should parents be allowed to genetically alter their child’s gender?
Can cannabis use in adolescence cause schizophrenia?
To what extent does the sugar tax reduce sugar consumption in the UK?
Why are the death-rates from Covid-19 worse in places with higher air pollution?
Why does emetophobia primarily affect women?
Could the legalisation of cannabis improve mental health?
Should we allow only UK citizens to use the NHS?
Can plastic surgery ever solve body dysmorphic disorder?
Do care home environments worsen the affects of Dementia and Alzheimer’s?
What are the links between obesity and parents criticizing their children’s bodies?
If a woman who wanted a child freezes her eggs and then happens to die, should a relative be allowed to use her eggs to conceive a child?
Is it right that mothers of Down’s syndrome babies are allowed to abort them up until birth?
Are anti-depressants a quick fix problem in an overwhelmed healthcare system?
Should the NHS provide IVF for women over 40?
To what extent are Black women discriminated against when giving birth?
Should counsellors have a qualification in psychology before being allowed to practice?
Why are girls so chronically misdiagnosed when it comes to autism?
Did the ancient Egyptians have a comprehensive understanding of mental health and illness?
Could electroshock therapy be the most effective method of treating depression?
Should we prioritise ICU places to people with children and dependents?
What are the similarities between Reactive Attachment Disorder and Autism?
A study of medical practices in North Korea
A comparison of different cancer treatments: surgical removals and chemotherapy to immunotherapies.
Is hypnotherapy ever a viable anaesthetic for surgery?

Students interested in taking medicine further should consider studying at one of our award winning Medicine Summer Schools to strengthen their application.

EPQ Ideas for Psychology

Is the media making suicide aspirational for young people?
To what extent does having social workers intervene in a family affect a child’s life outcomes?
Is talking therapy nearly ineffective for treating panic disorder?
Should children be allowed to decide if they can be taken into care?
Are the children of alcoholics more likely to become hoarders?
Is there a link between undiagnosed Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and alcoholism?
Can non-violent psychopaths have successful relationships?
Given how they change behaviour, should advertising and marketing be made illegal?
How has social media altered our brains since its inception?
Does the Stanford Prison Experiment prove that we should promote rehabilitation over punitive incarceration?
Are attachment issues in neglected children irreversible?
Can unschooling be classed as child neglect?
Can authoritarian parenting styles lead to overeating in adulthood?
Is technology making us more depressed?
Do gender-neutral toys lead to children with less stereotypical views of gender roles?
Can music help ease the effects of Dementia?
What are the long term effects of bullying?
Can studying people’s behaviours pre-suicide help prevent suicide?
Should crime-predicting algorithms be banned for their bias?
A study of the effects of living in an overcrowded household during Covid-19 lockdown.
Do memories alter when we recall them?
How does intergenerational trauma effect cortisol levels?
Do the negative affects of racism begin in the womb?
What can Savant Syndrome tell us about the multi-faceted nature of intelligence?
Do all humans have some level of body dysmorphia?

EPQ ideas for Law

Should defendants be allowed to represent themselves?
Is the internet an ungovernable wilderness when it comes to Law?
Why secret trials are a form of abuse
Should CCTV be made illegal?
Is the use of juries inevitably flawed when it comes to reaching a just verdict?
Should mass media be banned from high profile investigations?
Should we replace juries with AI-powered robots?
Should Donald Trump go to prison?
Could the police be classed as a gang in America?
How we can stop criminalising victims of sex trafficking.
Should we bring back the death penalty?
How much should a child’s desire to live with one parent or another affect the court’s decision?
Should people who see child abuse but don’t report it be subject to the law?
Should male partners sue their female partners for abortion?
Should organ donation be mandatory for everyone?
When should one country legally intervene in another, when it comes to human rights abuses?
Should marriage be banned until the age of 21?
Should lie detector results be legalised in UK courts?
Could the government be legally obliged to pay women for their unpaid labour that contributes to the economy?
If embryos are capable of feelings and sensations, should abortion be forbidden at any stage?
Should minors trafficked to the UK from a dangerous country or situation be given immediate residency?
Could euthanasia be legalised, whether or not someone is critically ill and close to death?
Should parents be legally obliged to leave money to their children?
Should the inheritance tax be abolished?
Should people with dual citizenship automatically receive diplomatic protection from both countries?

Students interested in becoming a lawyer should consider studying at one of our Law Summer Schools on campus at top UK and US universities.

EPQ ideas for primary school teaching

Should boys receive exclusive lessons on feminism in primary school?
How can we teach primary school students about internet safety?
How can we teach primary school students about their rights over their own bodies?
Is the way we teach obesity in school harmful to overweight or obese children?
Is the Education system indoctrinating students?
The importance of girls in primary school having role models in STEM.
Why banning mobile phones in school does more harm than good.
Why our education system fails to pick up students with dyspraxia.
Why we should allow students to move around the classroom as they learn.
Is the Montessori childrearing method of any use in mainstream primary school?
Should every school have access to a Forest School?
Why primary schools should teach skills such as cooking and home management to every child.
Are school uniforms too institutionalising for children?
Should school uniforms be enforced as a way of giving children routine?
The importance of failing well.
Should school be only three days a week?
Should children be able to choose what subjects they want to study at any time?
How exams unfairly disadvantage girls in primary school.
Should we abolish sets in primary school?
How can we teach healthy eating to children?
How can we teach anti-racism to primary school students?
A study of anxiety disorders in primary school students due to Covid-19.
How the education system can better accommodate students with high-functioning autism.
Why we need a better understanding of selective mutism in primary school.
Should primary schools in the UK become bilingual to enhance language learning?

EPQ ideas for Secondary School Teaching

Should school start and end later for teenagers?
Why students should never have to ask to go the bathroom.
Could a four day school week improve mental health among secondary school students?
Is the secondary school curriculum creative enough?
Why we should be teaching healthy communication to secondary school students.
Should parents be allowed to choose for their children not to receive sex education?
Should sports be compulsory at secondary school?
When does strict teaching become bullying?
Should modern languages be compulsory at secondary school?
Could Pathological Demand Avoidance explain why students who are bright aren’t meeting their potential?
Should we ban school uniform in secondary school?
Should we decolonise the secondary school curriculum?
Are their enough teachers of colour in secondary schools?
What is the effect of divorce on a student’s learning and development?
How to narrow the technology poverty gap among secondary school students.
How to create educational support for looked-after children.
How does having less money than your peers affect your identity as a secondary school student?
The effects of overcrowded and poor housing on educational attainment.
The effects of homelessness and insecure housing on educational attainment.
What effect does the assessment and exam structure in UK schools have on students’ mental health?
Are exams an unfair form of assessment for students with a specific learning difficulty like dyslexia or dyspraxia?
How does ADHD link to cleverness and giftedness in students?
Is our method of diagnosing autism in students informed enough?
How can we tackle perfectionism and fear of failure in female students?
Do exams unfairly advantage boys, and why?

EPQ ideas for Biology

Why we don’t have enough evidence for evolution.
Is Covid-19 more deadly than Ebola?
Are animals as intelligent as humans?
Is abortion murder?
Is homosexuality genetic or social?
What can the oldest living creature on earth teach us about biological immortality?
Does incest always create biological issues?
The use of parasites in weight loss attempts
How long would it take you to die if you ate the same thing and nothing else for years?
What causes diseases in trees?
Could we ever grow food on walls?
If your spouse died, what would the ethical implications be of cloning them?
A study on identity crises in identical twins.
Is obesity a genetic issue?
How does sepsis attack the body?
Will artificial hearts ever be a viable solution to chronic heart problems?
Could brain transplants ever be a viable option?
How do certain drugs affect cellular interactions?
A study of courting behaviours in different species.
How did different cellular mechanisms regulate different physiological processes?
Is obesity a modern phenomenon?
Can gene therapy cure Cystic Fibrosis?
Can gut microbiota influence host appetite?
What is the impact of invasive species on ecosystems?
What is the biology of laughter?

EPQ Ideas for History

Why poor dental hygiene in the middle ages was a myth.
Was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Justified?
Is it right to topple the statues of slave owners, in order to erase history?
Who does history belong to?
Why did the USA join World War Two so late?
How have male and female romantic relationships changed over time?
How has the role of marriage changed over time?
Should a country be allowed to teach its own history?
How did the British Empire expand so much?
Should museums return all their historical artefacts to their country of origin?
Were the Suffragettes the biggest force in women getting the vote?
Is religious warfare ever Justified?
How medieval fashion influences our outfits today
Was Anne Boleyn the main reason that Henry VII left the Catholic church?
Did Henry VII suffer from a genetic disease that prevented him from conceiving healthy children?
Why do we hold on to so many myths in History?
A study of propaganda in History textbooks in UK history.
Why is History important to the future?
To what extent did the purchase of commissions affect the fighting power of the British army between 1760-1860?
What is the validity of historical fiction and romance?
How did secret churches operate in Mao’s China?
How did 19th Century attitudes towards madness affect society’s treatment of ‘hysterical’ women?
What is the holocaust’s relationship with literature?
Were the liquidators who helped clean up the Chernobyl explosion used as human collateral?
How did the pill help women’s liberation?

EPQ Ideas For Economics

From an economic perspective, should we legalise human organ trade?
Can an increase of wealth directly influence happiness levels?
Could stock analysts be replaced by artificial intelligence?
How do socio-economic factors determine someone’s health in adulthood?
Who is to blame for the 2008 financial crisis?
Is illicit trade with China the only factor preventing the North Korean economy from total collapse?
How would we recover economically if the internet ceased to exist?
How did the 2008 financial crisis make house buying impossible for the majority of millennials?
Is the poverty trap impossible to get out of?
Can we compare the trickle-down economy to a pyramid scheme?
Does a lack of wealth in childhood really hold you back in life?
Is the gig economy leading to job insecurity a myth?
To what extent does women’s unpaid labour prop up the UK economy?
How has Brexit affected the UK economy?
Should we legalise a Universal Basic Income?
How quickly did the UK economy recover from the effects of World War Two?
Are all socialist economies doomed to fail?
How would the legalisation of Marijuana affect the world economy?
How does a lack of free speech negatively affect China’s economy?
Should there be a minimum wage?
Should there be a maximum wage?
Should billionaires be allowed to exist?
How has the global demand for oil changed over time?
What effect does illegal immigration have on the UK economy?
Why a lack of childcare support for women hurts the economy.

EPQ Ideas for Business Studies

Should businesses expanding to developing countries be forced to pay their employees the same amount they would at home?
What does Foxconn show about the human cost of business?
How should we hold businesses to account for unethical behaviour?
Should we have a single, global currency?
How can companies become more eco-friendly?
Should we lower the corporate income tax?
Will Google kill the journalism industry?
Why apprenticeships should pay more
Why every business leader should take a course in empathy.
How successful is it when businesses rebrand?
Should companies interfere in their employees’ private lives?
How churches like Hillsong became multi-million pound businesses.
Should CEOs have a salary limit?
Is the American government a big business?
How has e-commerce affected bookshops?
Does corporate social responsibility have an impact on company sales and profits?
A study of businesswomen in the 18th Century
When do business marketing practices become unethical?
Should multi-million pound businesses have taken advantage of the government’s furlough scheme during the Covid-19 lockdown?
How do corporations influence politics?
Should a business ever own a town or city?
Start your own small business – perhaps on eBay or Etsy – and write your EPQ on an aspect of it.
Should private healthcare be allowed to exist?
Could marketing be considered a mass human experiment?
To what extent does colour effect audience response to branding and logos?

If you want to study economics, business or marketing to a higher level, consider joining Oxford Royale this summer for a Business Summer School .

EPQ Ideas for English Literature

The evil stepmothers in fairy tales were actually mothers in the original texts. What does this tell us about society’s anxieties and perspectives on motherhood?
To what extent is the state of Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale based on real life?
Is writing an act of magic?
Can works of literature oppress their fictional, female characters?
Can the mistranslation of literature create a liminal world – a place that is not quite one thing and not quite another?
What does the rise of the digital book teach us about literature?
Can we ever ‘eat’ literature?
Do you need to be able to read and write to be an author?
Are stories living things?
Discuss the gender politics in George Eliot’s Middlemarch.
How is the sensory experience of dyslexia presented in literature?
Is English Literature considered a ‘feminine’ subject?
As an English student, is it your job to always work out what an author means?
Is the author dead?
Could journalists be replaced by AI-reporters?
Do we need to overhaul the literary canon?
Do we really need spelling and punctuation in literature?
Should mass media be allowed to be biased?
How helpful is the idea of literary genres to understanding a text?
How George Orwell hid his dissenting view of communism in Animal Farm.
Why learning to read is a human right.
Can a novel ever be timeless?
Does literary form exist just so that writers can subvert it?
Is rhythm in a poem a separate language?
Explore Plath’s portrayal of depression in The Bell Jar.

EPQ ideas for Art

Should Banksy be allowed to graffiti on walls?
Who decides the value of art, and should we standardise it?
Has photography always been a form of art?
To what extent is mathematics art?
Why do people consider art to be an easy subject?
Can art reverse the effects of mental illness?
Can anything be art?
Is all graffiti a form of art?
Why the common perception of medieval people being bad at art is misguided.
How does the commercialisation of the art industry change art itself?
How does the perception of a career in art as worthless affect the life choices of students?
Does an audience’s gaze change a piece of art?
Are art and beauty essentially related?
Is art supposed to be a visual and sensory experience, or something that we think about and define a meaning for?
Who decides that a piece of art is ‘good’?
Does art have a purpose?
Can art help fight climate change?
Why does it matter that children are exposed to art?
What is the effect of producing art on a child’s brain?
If nobody ever saw your artwork, would it be worth creating?
Does a piece of art necessarily have a relationship with its creator, or can it detach itself?
Is art a language?
What does the disdain for modern art teach us about people’s stereotypes of art?
Are philosophers artists?
Could the world itself count as a work of art?

EPQ Ideas for Foreign Languages

Where did language come from?
Do idioms prove that languages can never truly be translated?
Is body language universal across all countries?
Should everyone be made to learn sign language?
Why did Esperanto fail as a language policy?
Which is the hardest language to learn and why?
Do multi-lingual children grow up to be more economically successful?
Why does having dyspraxia make language learning difficult?
Should the whole world be made to speak one language?
How does an influx of immigration alter the language of a region?
What is the effect of trading on local dialects?
Should everyone be made to learn a foreign language at school?
What does the Korean language, when compared in North and South Korea, teach us about the evolution of language?
Is there such a thing as a ‘correct’ way of speaking a language, when languages never stop evolving with culture?
Could a language be classed as a living thing?
Why is English such a dominant language across the world?
Is Latin a dead language?
What caused the English language to evolve so drastically over time?
What is the hardest language to learn, and why?
What does baby-talk in different foreign countries teach us about the acquisition of language?
Why does China have several dialects, but only one alphabet?
Did grammar always exist?
What is the link between being good at maths and being good at language learning?
Why are young children such natural language learners?
Is learning a language cultural appropriation?

EPQ Ideas for Sport

How sports stars experience an identity crisis after they retire
Should soldiers be paid more than footballers?
How do psychological factors influence performance in sport?
What do fans react to their team winning a football match as though they won it themselves?
Are national and international sports a misuse of resources?
How does struggling with sports in primary school affect children’s self esteem?
Should women be allowed to compete against men in professional sports?
Is the ability to run fast purely a genetic advantage?
Why do we fail to take women’s sports seriously as a society?
Should children be forced to do sports in school?
How can the presence of media affect the outcome of a game?
Should referees be replaced by AI-powered robots, to decrease bias?
How does a lack of female representation in sport prevent girls from seeking it out as a career?
What is the effect of parents’ motivation a child’s enjoyment of sport?
What are the long term effects of the Olympics on the host country’s tourism?
How does a lack of ability at sports correlate to bullying?
Why do we have less interest in women’s sports?
A history of sport in pandemics
How does a long-term sports injury affect an athlete’s mental health?
Can a star athlete succeed without a coach?
Should cheerleaders be banned?
Is racism being taken seriously in sport?
Can you still be a top athlete with a poor diet?
Who decides when something is a sport?
Why is netball predominantly considered to be a sport for women?

EPQ Ideas for Architecture

How does the design of a building influence its inhabitants emotions?
Should city-dwellers without gardens be given free access to national parks at all times?
What is the link between Brutalist style architecture and anxiety and depression?
What is the link between mathematics and art in Architecture?
How is a building affected by the people who live in it?
How does the style of council housing feed into class stereotypes?
Can architecture cause social dysfunction?
Would smart cities be a breach of privacy?
Could we create a building the size of a city, to house an entire population?
Make an architectural model of a zero-carbon home and write an essay describing how its functions avoid the use of carbon.
Should the local government have the right to pull down a building if the community who live there oppose it?
Is it ethical to spend millions of pounds creating a building in a city with high levels of quality?
Were houses built in the 1930s of superior quality?
Should councils have been allowed to remove tenement dwellers from their homes in the post-war era, when the enforced move was traumatic?
Can we adapt Japanese smart space efficient buildings to western buildings?
What were the influences on architecture in China?
How did communism during Mao’s China change the country’s cityscapes?
How can we build environmentally-friendly housing in LEDCs?
Can zero carbon housing ever really exist?
Should public playgrounds exist for people of every age?
Was Grenfell tower a total architectural failure?
What house styles in different areas tell us about gender forms of the time.
How does technology affect architecture?
What was the effect of feminism on architecture?
Should houses worth over a million pounds be built with some benefit to the whole neighbourhood?

Join our Oxford Architecture Summer School for the chance to learn architecture amongst the dreaming spires of the city of Oxford.

EPQ ideas for Maths

Is the golden ratio a racist idea?
What is the maths behind cryptocurrencies?
What are the links between foreign language learning and maths?
What are the links between mathematics and art?
Has maths always existed?
How can we use statistical analysis to predict a child’s outcomes in life?
Should children be forced to take maths at A-Level in the UK?
Should maths be optional at secondary school in the UK?
Why do some people say that maths is beautiful?
Does money really exist?
An exploration of chaos theory.
Can maths explain how the universe came into existence?
How can calculations improve the safety of commuters who cycle in Oxford over the next 5 years?
Explore conflict and co-operation in The Prisoner’s Dilemma.
Which is more important, e or pi?
Can we calculate infinity?
An exploration of orbital mechanics.
Is maths a pointless subject if we don’t apply it to something?
Is learning Maths more important than learning English in primary school?
What was the role of maths in the code-breaking of Bletchley Park?
How do fractals work in modelling systems?
Can we reverse dyscalculia?
Can mathematical systems ever be illogical?
Did people discover maths?
Could maths ever prove the existence of a parallel universe?

Those keen on studying maths in the heart of the silicon valley can join our Mathematics programme for 15-18 year olds on campus at our Berkeley Summer School in 2024.

EPQ ideas for Physics

How does String Theory explain the universe?
How can physics help us prevent climate change?
What is the relationships between maths and physics?
What was the role of Mileva Maric Einstein, Albert Einstein’s wife, in his scientific findings?
Build a quadcopter with remote control.
How can emergency whistles be optimised for design and use in rural environments?
What would happen to the solar system when the sun dies?
How can physics help us provide electricity to parts of rural India?
Is time an illusion?
Discuss the different interpretations of quantum mechanics.
Could humans ever live on Mars?
Design and build a functioning robot.
How soon will we have flying cars?
What are some feasible methods for cleaning up space junk?
Where did the universe come from?
How can physics prove the existence of God?
How did Einstein’s theory of relativity influence Physics?
Now that NASA has confirmed there is water on the moon, could it be a feasible tourist destination?
Given their devastating effects, should we eliminate nuclear weapons from the earth?
What contributed to the Cleddau bridge disaster?
How can we solve the pay gap in the field of physics?
A study of star formation and star death.
Is time travel possible?
How far can humans realistically explore space?
Mathematical knot theory and its applications.

EPQ ideas for Chemistry

What was the impact of optical isomerism in the drug Thalidomide, which led to fetal abnormalities?
An assessment of the safety of fluoride in water.
To what extent did the government in Louisiana cover up the danger of the petrochemical plants in Louisiana’s ‘cancer alley’?
Should Aspartame (E951) be allowed in our food and drink?
When do chemicals become hallucinogens?
An assessment of hydrogen storage within Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs).
An extraction of limonene from citrus fruits.
Make a collection of esters that smell pleasant.
Will graphene have a significant influence on the future?
To what extent have inventions in Chemical Engineering impacted our lives?
As assessment of the total synthesis of natural products.
An experiment in polymer chemistry.
An assessment of molecular dynamics
An assessment of solid state structure
Could we ever create a plastic that decomposes?
A research project on hydrogen fuel cells
Why doesn’t plastic decompose?
What are the chemical processes behind purifying water?
An exploration of the chemistry behind food allergies in humans?
What are the chemicals involved in human attraction?
How does cortisol affect the human body?
Should pesticides be ethically permissible?
What are the advantages of computer aided fragment based drug design?
How can click chemistry be used to improve drug synthesis?
How has the discovery of pharmaceutical chemicals changed over the past 200 years?

EPQ ideas for Engineering

Should we teach Engineering in primary school?
Why is there a gender imbalance in Engineering, and how can we fix it?
Is there an oversaturation of engineers in India, and if so, why?
Was everything in the world built by an engineer?
Do we need to expand our definition of engineer?
Can Engineering solve the mystery of Malaysian Airlines flight 370?
Can Engineering explain the disappearance of Emilia Earhart?
Did Engineering faults contribute to the sinking of the titanic.
Build your own model plane, boat or high altitude balloon.
Could hot air balloons become a mainstream method of travel?
Discuss the hydraulics paradox.
How have innovations in airframe design increased safety in commercial aircraft?
How do architects and engineers collaborate?
Should we be allowed to develop robots that can mimic human emotion?
What would it mean for an engineer to be ethical when building something?
How has Civil Engineering changed over time?
How can chemical engineers improve energy efficiency?
How could alterations in chemical Engineering have prevented the Deepwater Horizon oil spill?
As assessment of the sustainability of London’s tube system.
How much of our countryside should we sacrifice for better transport links?
Will we have enough oil for future generations?
Would energy provided entirely by a wind farm system run the UK economy?
What are the reasons for the pay gap in Engineering, and how can we solve them?
How can we get pre-school children interested in Engineering?
Design a system to enhance plastic recycling.

Prospective engineers can join our Engineering Summer Schools for a two-week immersion in the core principles of the subject.

EPQ ideas for Computer Science

Why we should teach children how to code at the same time we teach them to write.
Create a website design and code it.
Is one coding language superior to another?
How can we reduce computer illiteracy in poorer areas?
Why internet access is a human right.
Are AI-driven robots responsible for their own actions?
Are Ai-assessed job interviews inevitably biased?
How soon will handwriting become totally irrelevant?
Are companies upskilling fast enough to cope with the digital demands of Covid-19?
It’s more important to learn to code than to learn to write
Is Computer Science a more relevant subject than Physics?
How will quantum computers change our way of life?
Should silicon valley companies be criminalised for our widespread addiction to technology?
What would happen if all technology was wiped out?
Will we ever be able to search Google through a microchip in our brains?
What new jobs will Ai create in the next ten years?
What is increased automation doing to our jobs?
Develop your own game.
Should we allow AI-writing assistants like Grammarly to change the way we express ourselves?
What are the positive effects of machine learning on healthcare?
How does AI differ from human intelligence?
Is it ethical to use social care robots to alleviate loneliness?
Is it ethical to create an app which offers you an AI friend?
What is the most efficient way to track down cyber criminals?
How do cyber criminals cover their tracks on the internet?

EPQ ideas for Ethics

Should people be able to sue their parents for bringing them into the world?
Do men automatically have the right to be present at their child’s birth?
Should we be allowed to dispose of spare embryos in IVF?
Should we be allowed to use embryos for stem cell research?
Should machines with AI have their own rights?
Are Siri and Alexa slaves?
Should we be allowed to mix human and animal DNA?
Should we be allowed to clone humans?
Do we have the right to experiment on animals?
Do we have the right to visit other planets and the moon?
Should a father have rights over an unborn child?
Should there be an assessment process before people have children?
Is sterilisation unethical in every circumstance?
Should we be allowed to cuddle babies if they can’t give verbal consent?
Should an embryo have protected rights under the law?
Do we have the right to prevent someone from committing suicide?
The disturbing eugenics around birth control
Should parents be allowed to edit out genetic conditions before a child’s birth?
Should testing fetuses for Down’s Syndrome be legal?
Are our moral decisions innate or socially conditioned?
Should we have the right to decide when life begins?
If you need a heart transplant and you’re hoping for a heart, does that mean you’re hoping for someone else to die?
Should we put a limit on the number of children people have?
Does the means justify the end?

EPQ ideas for Politics

Why has the USA never had a female president?
If we colonised Mars, who would govern it?
Has Great Britain lost its status as a world power?
Are the government’s counter-terror policies effective?
Is it acceptable to teach British values in primary schools?
How does nepotism negatively affect politics?
How has Donald Trump changed politics?
Should there be universal freedom of information?
Why did Brexit happen?
What are the dangerous effects of conspiracy theories like Q-Anon on the public?
Should it be illegal to publicly shame politicians?
Will there ever be a viable mid-ground between socialism and capitalism?
Would global governance be a better policy than individual governments?
How are female politicians and prime ministers perceived?
Should there be freedom of speech at all costs?
Should countries be allowed to ban religion?
An assessment of the case for anarchy.
Should the UK’s land belong to everyone?
An analysis of political cartoons in the UK
Should everyone have to vote by law?
Should politics be taught in primary school?
Should everyone be made to take politics in secondary school?
Should National Service be mandatory in Singapore?
How did the war on drugs affect inner city US communities?
How was Twitter revolutionised politics?

Sociology EPQ ideas

How can we reverse stereotypes over drug use and misuse in different communities?
What is the impact of the media on our perception of women from Muslim communities?
Evaluate Marx’s account on the origins of the industrial revolution in Britain?
Is it fair for today’s feminists to criticise the lack of gender commentary in classical sociology?
How do human ideas, customs and behaviour come together to make culture?
How do gender, class, race and sexuality affect us and our social relations today?
A study of the effects of polyamorous family settings on children.
Have sociologists neglected emotion in their studies of human behaviour?
Do emotions come from society, or from within us?
How do different models of socialisation affect children?
Are eating disorders a social phenomenon?
Should we ban face-altering apps?
Should teenage pregnancy be so vilified?
Can upbringing create a narcissist?
Is perfectionism more prevalent in girls than boys, and how does that relate to the way we socialise either gender?
Should we ban gendered toys?
How can we assuage the social causes of substance abuse?
An exploration of the sociology of food.
Is it right to try and get someone out of a cult?
How racial segregation in cities enforces poverty, and prevents upward mobility.
What is the relationship between race and class?
The effects of interracial marriage in the 1950s.
The cultural diaspora of mixed race children.
How Disney made princesses key role models for girls.
Should weddings have to be registered to be legal?

EPQ ideas for Geography

How did Hurricane Catrina change the New Orleans community?
Is there such a thing as collective trauma after a natural disaster?
Does the earth belong more to humans than animals?
To what extent should be allow deforestation?
A study on how we will survive and adapt to climate change in 3020.
Does the way we categorise developing countries increase stereotypes?
How have the demand for super-crops impacted the agricultural systems in the countries where we grow them?
Should companies be allowed to expand to developing countries if they won’t pay workers the same wage as at home?
How does tourism affect a country’s culture?
Should all new houses be built with solar panels?
How can we reduce the effects of coastal erosion?
How has global warming changed the world’s physical features?
What are the socio-economic and political implications of migration policies for the UK?
Should borders between countries exist?
Are countries doing enough to meet their MDG targets?
Can a country ever become fully developed?
How does living as an illegal immigrant affect mental and physical health?
To what extent is global warming caused by human beings?
Was the civil war in Syria caused by climatic factors?
Could the National Geographic be considered exploitative?
A comparison of two earthquakes in different decades. to observe how advances in technology have impacted responses.
How does climate change affect different biomes and ecosystems around the world?
What are the environmental and social impacts of natural gas fracking?
A prototype for the generation of sustainable energy.
The effects of littering on marine health.

EPQ ideas for Religious Studies

Why materialism can’t disprove the existence of God.
Why science and religion are part of the same entity.
Paley provides the best argument to issues surrounding the existence of God.
To what extent can Freud’s view of religion and God be said to be accurate?
Is C.S Lewis’ claim that atheism is weaker than theism correct?
Is the belief in nothing still a belief?
Can we reach God through the via negativa?
Is atheism just ignorance?
Can we prove that the universe exists outside our mind?
Is the Catholic catechism biblical truth?
How did the history of the church shape our society today?
Should Religious Studies be compulsory in primary school?
The existence of life on earth is evidence of the existence of a higher being.
How do you explain the goodness of God in the light of the world’s evil?
What are the boundaries between a cult and a religion?
Should the church always be subject to the government?
Should the Queen be head of the protestant church?
Should the church form its own political party?
Are expensive religious buildings insensitive to those living in poverty?
Does baptising a baby save its soul?
Should politicians interfere in religious conflicts?
Is religion nothing more than a comfort blanket against death?
Can you ever justify taking a life?
Is religion the same as morality?
Is religion just a set of rules disguised as something greater?

So, there you have it. 600 EPQ ideas to enhance your passion and imagination for this exciting qualification. Now get ready to kickstart your academic future with an amazing EPQ idea of your own. Don’t forget to fill out that activity log as you go along!

COMMENTS

How to Conduct an Effective Literature Review for Your EPQ: A Step-by
Introduction. A literature review is an important component of any Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) project. IT involves researching and analyzing existing literature and scholarly works relevant to your topic. A well-conducted literature review can provide a solid foundation for your EPQ, helping you to identify gaps in the research, establish the context for your study, and build a ...
What is a Literature Review?
A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research. There are five key steps to writing a literature review: Search for relevant literature. Evaluate sources. Identify themes, debates and gaps.
EPQs: finding and using evidence
The first step in answering a research question is usually to do a 'literature review' or 'research review'. These articles focus on the 'research review' type of EPQ, in which collecting and analysing evidence from what other people have written will be a major part of what you do. Researchers need to do research reviews for two ...
PDF EPQ Resources Assessing a Literature Review Aspects of the literature
1 20 to 25 sources is a minimum suggestion to ensure that there is a good depth and breadth of literature - many students use more sources than this 2 There is a super guide to the Harvard referencing system available from the Open University here:
EPQs: writing up your dissertation
The next step is to communicate all that you have done. Your dissertation is the element of the EPQ that is read and assessed by others who haven't been involved in your research. The Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) is an opportunity for you to work independently on a topic that really interests you or that you think is important.
How to Write an EPQ Essay
9 steps to write your EPQ essay. 1. Come up with an idea. One of the main reasons students fail their EPQ is because they've chosen the wrong subject matter. It's vital that you choose a topic you're genuinely interested in, otherwise you won't have any motivation to work on it.
Extended Project Qualification Resources
Additional resources. Study Skills booklet - A handy guide to support you in completing the EPQ, covering topics such as academic language, referencing and time management. Check out the resources we offer to help you plan your extended project qualification, designed to help you every step of the way.
Literature review EPQ format
For my EPQ I created two tables, one for sources I read and did use and for ones I read and didn't use. I recommend doing a literature review for the each page you did w.g. if you wrote 16 pages (not including titles and bibliography) do a literature review for 16 of your sources (this can be split between ones you used and ones you did not use).
How to Write a Literature Review
Examples of literature reviews. Step 1 - Search for relevant literature. Step 2 - Evaluate and select sources. Step 3 - Identify themes, debates, and gaps. Step 4 - Outline your literature review's structure. Step 5 - Write your literature review.
Assessing the EPQ literature review
Assessing the EPQ literature review. Here's a short, one-sided student-friendly assessment grid to help Level 3 Extended Project students assess the quality of their literature review. All they need to do is simply circle a mark from 0 (non-existent) to 5 (absolutely fantastic) for each of the elements identified as being important in a ...
A Complete Guide to the EPQ
The Extended Project Qualification, or EPQ, is offered by many schools, and it's a standalone qualification that's a bit like a mini-thesis. You're allowed to choose whatever topic you like - it doesn't even have to be related to your A-levels - so it's about as flexible as you can get. It's unlikely to be included in your ...
PDF Quick Guide to the Edexcel/Pearson EPQ Overview
4. Dissertation:- Possible structure (Abstract, Introduction, Literature Review (including Source Analysis), Analysis & Discussion, Conclusions, Evaluation, Bibliography) 5. Presentation (Powerpoint slides) Required Documents (Assessment) 1. Oral Presentation Record Form 2. Observation Record/Witness Statement 3.
PDF Extended Project Qualification Survival Guide
They will carry out a mid-term review and end-of project review with ... Merchant Taylors' EPQ Presentation Evening - Wednesday 16th March 2016 . 11 Keep you Extended Project under control - don't get side-tracked or think 'I'll put it off until next week'.
600 EPQ Ideas
An EPQ (Extended Project Qualification) allows A-Level students to write either a 5,000 word essay on any question or subject of their choice. Alternatively, students can create an artefact or product, and write a shorter essay explaining it. The EPQ is equivalent to half an A-Level. EPQs are a fantastic way of proving to universities that you ...
Pearson and AccessEd: Literature Review
This webinar covers doing a literature review and finding trustworthy sources.https://www.pearson.com/uk/web/future-ready/research-project-webinars.html
Logistics
Background: Many businesses want to include sustainability in their manufacturing operations. A conventional economic production quantity (EPQ) model is employed to calculate the ideal number of products to manufacture at one time. The goal of this study was to look at the current research on sustainable economic production quantity and supply chain models and suggest prospective future ...
EPQ literature review
The literature review in a dissertation is usually used to compare contrasting source opinions in terms of agreement and disagreements, evaluating the validity of source and stuff like that. But my topic doesn't have contrasting views significant enough to mention and plus I can write about the evaluation of sources in my source table.