The Extended Essay helps you in three ways — 4,000 words is the right length, it already sits inside one discipline, and you had a supervisor. It hurts you in two: the reflection component is written for an examiner and has to go, and most EEs argue from existing literature rather than producing a finding. Which branch you are on decides everything.
Of the three big school research qualifications, the Extended Essay has the most mixed starting position. Three of its features help and two get in the way.
What helps
The length is right. Four thousand words is squarely inside what student journals want. The Oxford Journal of Student Scholarship asks for 2,000 to 8,000; your essay lands in the middle without padding or cutting.
It already sits in one discipline. This is the EE's real advantage over the EPQ. Because the essay had to be answerable using one subject's methods and was marked against that subject's criteria, you have already done the disciplinary fitting that a journal assumes. An EPQ student often has to retrofit this.
You had a supervisor. Somebody with subject knowledge read drafts and pushed back. That process catches the obvious methodological problems early, which is most of what a research mentor does in the first three sessions.
What gets in the way
The reflection material. The EE requires formal reflection sessions with your supervisor, recorded as you go, and the reflection is assessed. None of it belongs in a journal article. A reviewer reading "in my second reflection session I realised my scope was too broad" is reading something addressed to an examiner, and it reads as padding.
This is more than a deletion job. The reflective frame often shapes the essay's structure — sections exist because a criterion required them rather than because the argument needed them. Removing the reflection sometimes means rebuilding the spine.
Most EEs are arguments, not findings. This is the real fork. The EE rewards a sustained, well-evidenced argument drawing on existing scholarship. That is a literature review in all but name — good work, and not what most student research journals publish.
Which branch are you on?
| Subject group | Typical shape | Realistic route |
|---|---|---|
| Group 1 and 2 — Language and literature | Close reading, textual analysis | Venues accepting reviews |
| Group 3 — Individuals and societies | Varies; often data-capable | Scale into original analysis |
| Group 4 — Sciences | Experimental or data-based | Often already original |
| Group 5 — Mathematics | Often original by nature | Converts with least work |
| Group 6 — The arts | Analysis and criticism | Venues accepting reviews |
If you are on the synthesis branch — most Group 1, 2 and 6 essays and many Group 3 ones — your venues are the three that accept literature reviews: NHSJS, the Columbia Junior Science Journal and OJSS. That is a legitimate route and the commonest outcome.
If you are on the data branch, you keep the question and scale the evidence. An economics EE about one country's policy becomes a cross-country analysis using World Bank or OECD data. A psychology EE about a small sample moves to a national survey where the sample is already in the thousands.
If your Group 4 essay needed a laboratory, note that most universities bar under-eighteens from BSL-2, radioactive and animal work. Scaling a bench experiment is usually not available to you; the computational corner of your field is.
The conversion, step by step
- Pick the branch. Half an hour, and it determines everything else.
- Strip the assessment layer. Reflection material, RPPF content, criterion signposting, any section that exists because a criterion required it. A few hours, plus whatever restructuring that exposes.
- Write a methods section. Which sources or data, selected how, excluded on what basis, analysed by what approach — detailed enough for a stranger to repeat. One to two days, and it is the section reviewers read first.
- Resize the conclusion. Name what you could not control for and what would be needed to go further. Half a day, and it buys credibility rather than costing it.
- Check the venue's scope before writing a word of the revision. Ten minutes that prevents a desk rejection.
Our complete guide to publishing covers the route, and what happens after you submit covers the months after.
The authorship question
Ask your supervisor before you submit anywhere, and ask directly.
Most student journals ask about mentor involvement, and the honest answer matters. A supervisor who met the IB's requirement — guidance, drafts read, reflection sessions held — is usually acknowledged rather than listed as a co-author. A supervisor who shaped the method or did analysis is a different case.
The principle is the one Yale applies when it asks applicants to state "your specific contributions if the work was done in collaboration with others." If you cannot describe exactly which parts were yours, that is worth resolving before a paper carries your name.
The timing
Wait until your IB assessment is complete, and check your school's academic honesty position first.
The EE is externally assessed. Publishing it while that process is live creates an entirely avoidable problem, and there is no deadline that justifies the risk. A few months of waiting costs you nothing.
Is it worth it?
Convert if the 4,000-word cap genuinely frustrated you — if there was a strand you had to cut or a question underneath your question you wanted to chase. That student will finish and enjoy it.
Start fresh if the motivation is mainly to have a publication. Between stripping the assessment layer, writing a real methods section and possibly rebuilding the structure, the effort is comparable to a new project — so spend it on a question you chose freely. How to build a question worth publishing is the method, and thirty worked EE questions are grouped by subject group if you want examples of what answerable looks like.
Keep the stakes in proportion either way. Caltech reports 42% of admitted students submitted research and routes independent work to a portfolio. Beyond that, almost no university publishes a position on what a student publication is worth. A paper you can defend under questioning holds up whether or not a journal has processed it.
Where we fit
The Oxford Centre for Advanced Research pairs students with PhD candidates and early-career researchers at Oxford, Cambridge, other leading UK universities and Ivy League institutions. The Oxford Publication Fellowship is £3,400, roughly $4,400, and is built around getting a project to submission standard.
We submit to the Oxford Journal of Student Scholarship, the Journal of Research High School and Vanderbilt's Young Scientist Journal, through standard review. All three reject student work, ours included.
You already had a supervisor for the EE. If that person is willing to read one more draft, that is the cheapest version of what we sell, and you should ask them first.
The test
Read your abstract and ask whether it reports something or argues something.
Reports something: you are on the data branch, and three or four days of work gets you to a submission. Argues something: you have a literature review, and the three venues above are where it belongs.
Frequently asked questions
Can an Extended Essay be published?
Sometimes, with real work. It starts well — 4,000 words is within journal range and the essay already sits inside one discipline's methods. The two obstacles are the reflection material, which is written for an examiner rather than a reader, and the fact that most EEs synthesise rather than produce original findings.
What has to be removed?
Everything written for the assessment rather than the argument: the reflection sessions and RPPF material, explicit signposting to the assessment criteria, and the sections that exist because a criterion required them. None of it belongs in a journal article and a reviewer will read it as padding.
Which subject groups convert best?
Group 3 and Group 4 essays with data behind them — economics, geography, psychology using secondary data, biology or environmental systems built on public datasets. Group 1 and 2 essays are literature analysis and belong at venues accepting reviews. Mathematics essays often convert with the least work of all.
Does my supervisor get credit?
Ask them, directly, before you submit anywhere. Most student journals ask about mentor involvement. Yale asks applicants to state their specific contributions where work was collaborative, and the same honesty applies to authorship. A supervisor who gave light guidance is usually acknowledged rather than listed as an author.
When can I submit it?
After your IB assessment is complete. Check your school's academic honesty position first. The EE is externally assessed and publishing it while that is live creates an avoidable problem — waiting a few months costs you nothing.
Where would I send it?
If it stays an argument from existing literature: NHSJS, the Columbia Junior Science Journal or the Oxford Journal of Student Scholarship, the three that accept reviews. If you have or can get original data: the Journal of Emerging Investigators, or Vanderbilt's Young Scientist Journal, which takes original research only.