tok essay example pdf

How To Write A ToK Essay - Updated 2023

Ace your ToK Essay with our expert tips & tricks! Get the latest and greatest techniques on "How To Write A ToK Essay" and impress the IB examiners.📝💡

Table of content

• Introduction

Purpose Of ToK

Assessment of tok, the game plan, execution of the gameplan, planning for tok essay, structure of tok essay, conclusions, bibliography.

Introduce your topic accurately and state your thesis statement for the essay carefully.  A thesis statement is like a teaser to your entire essay wherein you define your key terms and introduce your interpretation of the question. Make sure that you do not reword the prescribed title in your thesis. Instead, it needs to, as the word says, INTRODUCE your readers to what your essay is about. A strong introduction allows the reader to deduce what knowledge question(s) you are trying to answer.

So, in a nutshell

• Write interesting things about the given TOK essay title .
• Define key terms
• Narrow in on the particularly interesting aspect
• State your thesis statement . This will be your short answer to your given title if you don't know how to write a killer thesis statement check out this blog from SparkNotes .
• State your Roadmap. This will help the readers in understanding the direction of your essay.

How to write a TOK Essay? 

To answer that, you must familiarise yourself with what a TOK Essay is about.

Before you start reading this article,  Amanda  has some excellent TOK tips for you!

Theory of Knowledge is one of the most meta subjects that IB offers. Despite its complexity, TOK helps in providing a base for holistic learning and allows students to have a multidisciplinary experience. 

To understand TOK is to understand the essence of IB, a task that most people consider unattainable.

But not for you! 

Thank your lucky stars who made you land on Nail IB. How exactly will Nail IB help you? 

Well, nailing International Baccalaureate is something we will discuss later. 

Let's focus on cracking your TOK essay, shall we?

TOK demonstrates how students  can apply their knowledge  with  greater awareness  and  credibility .

Big words, huh? 

Now that we know that we cannot just slide through the Theory of Knowledge, let's understand how we can conquer this battle all guns blazing.

ToK essay’s primary objective is to answer the  why  behind our studies. 

It makes one aware of the real-life implications of their subjects. The students gain greater awareness of their personal and ideological assumptions and appreciate the diversity of different perspectives. It helps the students find their unique perception, a prerequisite for excelling in the IB TOK essays.

Before we dive into our gameplan, let’s overview the rules of the game.

There are two assessment tasks in the TOK: an essay and a presentation . While a presentation encourages students to explore a real-life situation through the lens of TOK, an essay is written on the basis of the various questions provided by the International Baccalaureate Organisation.

• The presentation is to assess a student’s ability to apply TOK thinking to a real-life situation whereas IB TOK essay is more conceptual.
• The essay is externally assessed by IB and must be on any one of the prescribed TOK essay titles issued by the IB for each examination session.
• Word limit of a TOK essay is 1600 words ( excludes extended notes, footnotes, bibliography).

Now that we have unleashed the game, let’s move ahead towards the gameplan of acing both, your presentation and your essay.

One of the fundamental tasks of TOK is to examine different areas of knowledge and find out their similarities and differences.

The TOK essay requires the students to investigate two Areas of Knowledge (AOK)  and two Ways of Knowing   (WOK) . AOKs and WOKs are investigated via questions such as:

• How do we know what we know? (WOK)
• What counts as evidence for X? (AOK)
• How do we judge which is the best model of Y? (WOK)
• What does theory Z mean in the real world? (AOK + WOK)

The aforementioned are  Knowledge Questions  which help combine the Areas of Knowledge and the Ways of Knowing that they are using. This eliminates the superficial way of learning and makes an individual sensitive to the nature of the information.   Our acquisition of Knowledge can be broadly divided into Shared Knowledge and Personal Knowledge.

Shared knowledge: What WE know It is the product of more than one individual. Although individuals contribute to it, shared knowledge does not solely depend upon the contributions of a particular individual—there are possibilities for others to check and amend individual contributions and add to the body of knowledge that already exists.

Personal knowledge: What I know It is essentially dependent on the experiences of a particular individual. Also known as procedural knowledge, it is gained through experience, practice and personal involvement and is intimately bound up with the particular local circumstances of the individual such as biography, interests, values, and so on.

The best hack to ace TOK essay is to develop a habit of making connections between the construction of knowledge, its acquisition and its relevance in the real world. 

After that one needs to develop an interest in understanding the difference between diversity and cultural perspectives and personal assumptions.

One also needs to critically reflect on their own beliefs and assumptions, leading to more thoughtful, responsible and purposeful lives.

Yes, this is what you signed up for. It may sound a little intimidating but once you get the hang of it you will be able to see the matrix and understand this beautiful world a little better.

Understand that to provide the best version of your writing, it will take you more than one or two drafts. First and foremost, you need to pick your essay topic diligently. Try to choose an essay topic that best interests you. The topic should also allow you to explore the Areas of Knowledge towards which you are naturally inclined. Here are a few sample questions:

a) 'Ways of knowing are a check on our instinctive judgments.' To what extend do you agree with this statement?

b) With reference to two areas of knowledge discuss the way in which shared knowledge can shape their personal knowledge.

c) How can we know if knowledge is produced more through 'Passive Observation' or 'Active-Experiment' within the Human and Natural-sciences under a Mathematical-Perspective?

d) "The whole point of knowledge is to produce both meaning and purpose in our personal lives". Assess the validity of this statement.

Great things take time. It took me more than a couple of weeks to finalize this TOK essay guide. It is completely okay if the first few drafts may not look pleasing or award-winning to you. You will require sharpening your perspective towards the topic each time you polish your draft. Your writing journey from a dull draft to a masterpiece will be a whole process that you will have to be patient with. Have faith in yourself and proceed stepwise.

You need to consider the opinions of others who have devoted hours of research and a lifetime of dedicated studying the topic that surrounds your writing. Unravelling the realms of your mind palace is so Sherlock but let’s not deny the fact that at times, Watson is the one whose expertise helps Sherlock through pretty difficult times. I mean even Batman needs a Robin. In support of my awesome sauce examples, the point I am trying to make is that  finding support for our claims and counterclaims through research is a good thing .

Use real-life examples to support your claims and counterclaims. These examples need to be documented researched examples like studies, experiments, articles, presentations by well-known people, etc. Examples that stem from your diploma subjects are highly encouraged, but those will need to be supported by research as well.   

It is suggested that you choose a title, stick to it, tackle it and not be afraid. Do not change your mind unless there is a good reason. Also, try choosing Areas of knowledge that you truly enjoy. You know slaying a known devil is much easier than an unknown one. Allot a TIMELINE to your essay. Start with creating an outline of your essay. This will help you to track your progress and accomplish your goals

You can use tools like  Trello  to organize your ideas and plan your TOK essay.

Areas of Knowledge (AOKs): TOK distinguishes between eight areas of knowledge. They are mathematics, the natural sciences, the human sciences, the arts, history, ethics, religious knowledge systems, and indigenous knowledge systems. It is suggested that students study and explore six of these eight.

Ways of knowing (WOKs): TOK identifies eight specific WOKs- language, sense perception, emotion, reason, imagination, faith, intuition, and memory. It is suggested that studying four of these eight in-depth would be appropriate. WOKs underlie the methodology of the areas of knowledge and provide a basis for personal knowledge.

Moving ahead, let us discuss the structure of your TOK essay.

Your essay will consist of 4 broad segregations

Before breaking down further on the pillars, keep the following in mind

• Please note what the TOK essay title is asking you. (Read it a couple of times. We highly recommend that you brainstorm ideas with your TOK coordinator)
• Make sure you understand the command term and the question it is asking.
• What kind of knowledge is being elicited?
• When choosing your areas of knowledge (AoK) and ways of knowing (WoK) make sure that you are able to draw contrasts and comparisons, that is, you are able to find evidence that supports as well as challenges your claims.
• Identify key terms in your TOK essay title. Make sure you define them. Your essay will gravitate around them. Key terms/words in your titles are your essay anchors. Your response should be built around them.
• Your writing skills come in handy while you work on your IB TOK essay. Like any other essay make sure you have proper thesis statements and topic sentences to guide the evaluator through your work.
• Respect the TOK essay title. Rephrasing the topic is not encouraged . Your main job is to address the title.

The body can be mainly divided into 3 segments.

Body (1st Segment)

• AoK Claim:  Here you investigate your first Area of Knowledge and draw parallels between your AoK and the question. This is done by stating your claim. Claims can be general in nature and need not reference a particular area of knowledge. They help you shape your essay and investigate the question further. 
• Evidence: Example of a real-life situation, describe thoroughly and accurately, which supports your stated claim. (AoK)
• Counter-Claim: State your counter-claim: like claims, those can be general and need not reference a particular area of knowledge. Counterclaim helps you show the other side the coin and gives your essay a holistic nature. 
• Evidence: A referenced real-life situation/example. Describe thoroughly and accurately, show how this supports your counterclaim (AoK ).
• Don’t forget to weave in your WoKs:  You need to take into account the source of your knowledge. Here you can also investigate if your nature of acquiring the knowledge has, in any way, affected it. It is good practice to question if your knowledge would be different had it been acquired through a different source/method
• Mini-conclusion: Here you analyze your examples in reference to your claims and counterclaims. You must connect to your thesis statement and the prescribed title. How does your proposed argument, in this particular part of the body, connect to the prescribed title and the knowledge questions you are trying to answer?

Body (2): Follow the above process for your second AOK.

• Use this part of your essay to compare and contrast your varying AoKs. You need to connect them to your thesis and your prescribed title clearly showing how your arguments respond to the PT.

Your conclusion section will make your essay come together. It is the glue that will make your essay stick together. Herein, you need to

• Reiterate your thesis (initial response).
• Use your mini conclusions to write a final conclusion.
• Tell the reader what the significance is for knowing what we know in this particular PT.
• Discuss implications as well.
• Offer another perspective, how will the perspective of a different person affect the claims/counterclaims you make in the essay?
• Don’t forget to make the end strong.

We recommend all the ib students use the  citation machine  (It's FREE) to organize or generate a bibliography for your TOK essay. Please go through this extensive guide provided by the IB before you start working on your citations.

If you are still struggling heaps with your TOK essay feel free to subscribe to our tok notes bundles or get access to more than 500+ IBDP notes and past papers here .

Nail IB is your virtual companion that helps you hustle through your diploma and provide you with the right resources at the right time. To know more about acing IB, click  here .

I hope this article will become the foundation for figuring out how to write a TOK Essay.

Remember to have faith in yourself.

I hope you NAIL your TOK essay!

Quoting the great Napolean Hill

"Whatever the mind of a man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."

IB Resources you will love!

55234 + free ib flashcards, 136 + free ia samples, 3962 + ib videos by experts, 20099 + ib sample practice questions, ib resources for 30 + subjects.

Understanding the TOK essay rubric

TOK Home > Free TOK notes > TOK essay guidance > Understanding the TOK essay rubric

After understanding the of the basics of the essay, your next step is to grasp how it is evaluated and marked, which is outlined in the ‘assessment instrument’. Your TOK teacher will give you a copy of this, or you can find it online in the 2022 TOK Guide.

The overall assessment objective of the TOK essay is to answer the prescribed essay title in a clear, coherent, and critical way. In order to do this, the assessment ‘instrument’ looks for five different skills.

STEP 1: Understand the TOK essay rubric

1. making links to tok.

The discussion within your TOK essay should be linked very effectively to the  areas of knowledge . Most, TOK essays expect you to discuss two AOKs, which will provide you with the context to explore and answer the prescribed title you’ve chosen.

2. Understanding perspectives

Your TOK essay should show a clear awareness of different points of view, and should offer an evaluation of them. This means considering how different perspective might approach the question in different ways.

3. Offering an effective argument

The arguments within your TOK essay are clear and coherent, and are supported by strong examples.

This means expressing your opinions clearly, and supporting them with original and meaningful real-life situations.

4. Keeping discussions relevant

Your essay’s discussions should offer a ‘sustained focus’ on the title. This means that you should be able to pick out any section of your essay, and be able to identify what question it is answering.

5. Considering implications

Your essay needs to not just present and evaluate arguments, it also needs to say why these arguments are significant, and what their implications are.

After you have grasped the rubric strands, you are ready to move on to choosing your prescribed title from the choice of six that are published in March or November – which we provide guidance on here .

Creating a TOK essay: our four-step guide

Click on the buttons below to take you to the four steps of creating a great TOK essay. Don’t forget that we have plenty of videos on this and other aspects of the course, and members of the site have access to a huge amount of other resources to help you master the course and assessment tasks.

How to write a TOK essay: webinar

This 80-minute webinar video and presentation gives you a clear, engaging, step-by-step guide to the task, helping you to understand the assessment rubric, choose the right PT, and produce an essay that hits all the assessment targets.

The video is supported by a presentation, and a Q&A debrief answering some of the most common questions asked about writing a TOK essay. Purchase your ticket here .

More support for the TOK essay

Make sure that your TOK teacher has given you access to all the documents and online material that support the essay. These include the TOK Subject Guide, the TOK essay rubric, and exemplar TOK essays (found in ‘MyIB’, which is accessible to teachers).   Make sure you go through our other pages on writing the TOK essay. You’ll find help on understanding what the is looking for, that works for you, what each of the should focus on, how to an effective TOK essay, and how to fill in your .   If your school is a  member  of theoryofknowledge.net, we have designed a series of lessons on the essay, with two formative assessment tasks. These will familiarize you with the essay rubric, knowledge questions, real-life situations, how to deal with perspectives and implications, and structuring an essay. If you are signed into the site, you can access these lessons  here .   You can also find out our thoughts on the TOK essay (and the TOK exhibition) in several webinars that we have delivered. The main one is the TOK Assessment 2022 webinar, but we also consider this form of assessment in our free webinars on the 2022 course. You can see these webinars on  this page  of the site.

Subscribe to the free TOK newsletter!

Subscribe to our free newsletter, and collect fantastic examples that will help you to understand the key ideas of TOK, support your essay and exhibition discussions, and help you to become an authentic critical thinker .

You’ll encounter some of the most important thinkers from the past and the present, go beyond the headlines of contemporary events and issues around the globe, and see how TOK concepts manifest in the real-world. Subscribe HERE !

• Areas of Knowledge
• Human Sciences
• Knowledge and Language
• Knowledge and Technology
• Knowledge and the Knower
• Knowledge Framework
• Knowledge Questions
• Mathematics
• Natural Sciences
• Optional Themes
• The Core Theme
• TOK Concepts
• TOK Exhibition

TOK exhibition Sample 1

Alexey Popov February 21, 2021 Assessment , TOK Exhibition

In this post you will find the first one of our TOK exhibition samples: the written commentary itself as well as a video that gives a step-by-step explanation of the full creation process.

TOK exhibition Sample 1 uses the following approach:

• Choose the IA prompt
• Think about one aspect in relation to it
• Find an object supporting it
• Link the object to the prompt
• Depending on how it was linked, choose where to look for the other two objects

The IA prompt that was selected is “Bias is inevitable in the production of knowledge”. The three objects are:

• the Big K (the prototype kilogram)
• Casio FX-83GT PLUS calculator
• Brendan Cole’s article “‘Little Red Riding Hood’ Banned from School over Sexism Concerns” (2019)

Why we are doing this

ThemEd’s TOK textbook for the new syllabus

We at Themantic Education think that the best way to support students in making their TOK exhibition is to demonstrate some specific examples – not only the final product, but the full thinking process that went into it. This way students will understand not only where they need to go, but also how to get there.

For this reason we have created several sample TOK exhibitions each using a slightly diff erent approach to selecting the objects.

Each of our sample exhibitions includes the fully written TOK exhibition commentary and a YouTube video that gives a step-by-step explanation of how the exhibition was created. Together they will help your students understand the process thor oughly.

Don’t forget to check out our other TOK exhibition samples! See Thematic Education’s IB TOK playlist on YouTube

(And buy our textbook , it’s awesome and different from all other textbooks)

EXPLAINER VIDEO: The process of creation

WRITTEN COMMENTARY: Is bias inevitable in the production of knowledge?

I will define bias as a systematic deviation. “Systematic” is what makes bias different from an error or a mistake. If we measure something 100 times, we will get slightly different readings each time – this is random error. However, if all our measurements are systematically slanted in one direction – this is bias.  

If we want to show that bias is inevitable in the production of knowledge, we should find examples of knowledge that, by common sense, is most definitely not biased . Then we should try to find elements of bias in this believed-to-be-unbiased knowledge. If we do succeed in finding such elements, we must agree that bias is inevitable. 

This is the Big K, the prototype kilogram. It is a block of platinum-iridium alloy that has been housed at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in France since 1889. Back then scientists agreed to define a kilogram as the mass equivalent to the mass of this object. All 1 kg weights existing in the world today are copies of copies of copies of copies of this boulder. Scientists have taken great efforts to ensure that the mass of this prototype kilogram does not change. However, despite all precautions, it changed. Since 1889 it has become approximately 50 micrograms lighter – that is the weight of an eyelash (Resnick, 2019).  

This object links to the idea of bias because, since the prototype has become lighter, we are systematically overestimating how much a kilogram is. It is a case of systematic deviation (which, by my definition, is bias). The object also illustrates the idea of inevitability of bias: the Big K has lost some mass due to natural fluctuations of matter, physical laws that are beyond human control. 

This object was included in the exhibition because it demonstrates the idea that even the most precise scientific measurements are done against a standard, but standards themselves may change, and when they do, our new measurements become biased. I tried to find an example of something that is believed to be unbiased, and then I found an element of bias in it.

What are some other examples of knowledge that are typically believed to be free of bias? Mathematical knowledge has this kind of aura around it, especially when it is aided by technology. When we use a calculator, there is no reason to believe that the result of our calculation is biased. So it may seem.

This object links to the concept of bias because it is a case of systematic deviation from the truth. It is only this particular model, and this particular problem, that produces a biased result. This object also exemplifies the idea of inevitability of bias. The reason for this error is that pi is infinite, but the calculator’s memory is not. Therefore there is some truncation involved at some point somewhere. It is inevitable because technology cannot have infinite power.

This object has been included in the exhibition because it shows that even in something as certain as mathematics there could be systematic mistakes (biases). Unless we create technology that is infinitely powerful, we cannot recreate the infinite accuracy that is intrinsic in mathematics. Once again, I found something that is widely believed to be unbiased, and then I found an element of bias in it. 

For my third object I am using Brendan Cole’s online article “‘Little Red Riding Hood’ Banned from School over Sexism Concerns” (2019) – this is a screenshot of the article. 

The context behind this is that creating this exhibition has made me think about my own biases. I might have absorbed some cultural biases at an early age. 

As described in the article, a school in Spain has withdrawn from its library 200 classic children’s books including Sleeping Beauty and Little Red Riding Hood, after analyzing them and concluding that they were “toxic” in how they depicted sexist stereotypes. For example, in Sleeping Beauty the man who kisses a sleeping woman without her consent is presented as a hero. No wonder some parents have made the choice to not expose their children to tales like that (Cole, 2019). 

This object exemplifies the idea of bias because it shows how gender bias manifests in units of culture. It also conveys the idea of inevitability because we absorb these units of culture at a very young age when our critical thinking abilities are limited, so the biases may gradually become part of our personality on a deep level without us being aware of it. 

This object has been included in the exhibition because it highlights another reason why bias is inevitable. While my first object (the Big K) shows that bias may be created by fluctuations of physical matter that are beyond our control and my second object shows that bias may be a result of ever imperfect technology, the third object highlights the idea that bias may be a result of cultural transmission at a young age. All three factors are very difficult or even impossible to avoid, which does indeed make bias inevitable. 

Word count: 936 words

References:

Cole, B. (2019, November 4). ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ Banned From School Over Sexism Concerns. Newsweek . Retrieved from: https://www.newsweek.com/little-red-riding-hood-banned-school-over-sexism-concerns-1393134  

Parker, M. [Stand-Up Maths]. (2020, July 17). Why do calculators get this wrong? (We don’t know!) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LKy3lrkTRA

Resnick, B. (2019, May 20). The new kilogram just debuted. It’s a massive achievement. Vox . Retrieved from: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/5/17/18627757/kilogram-redefined-world-metrology-day-explained

Alexey Popov is a teacher of IB Psychology and Theory of Knowledge. He is an IB author, examiner and workshop leader. He also authored Oxford IB Psychology books. He currently lives in Hong Kong.

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sample A, 10/10 tok exhibition disclaimer : THIS IS NOT MINE! OFFICIAL SAMPLE PUBLISHED BY IBO 

Edited March 6, 2022 by alijcia

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