How to write the IB History IA

The History IA — the Historical Investigation — is the one piece of coursework your History grade is marked on internally, and it is worth a quarter of your final grade at Standard Level and a fifth at Higher. Most students lose marks here not because they cannot research, but because they pick a question that is too broad, summarise their sources instead of evaluating them, or narrate a story when the examiner is hunting for an argument. This guide walks you through the whole thing: what the investigation is, how it is marked across the three sections, exactly how to write each part, and what separates a top-band study from an average one.

It helps to understand what the task is really testing before you start. The Historical Investigation is not an essay about a period of history; it is a demonstration that you can do history — that you can frame a researchable question, handle evidence critically, weigh competing interpretations, and reflect honestly on the limits of what you have produced. Examiners are not looking for the student who knows the most facts about, say, the Cold War. They are looking for the student who can take a small, sharp question, gather evidence that genuinely bears on it, and reason their way to a defensible answer while remaining alert to the weaknesses of their own sources. That mindset — historian rather than candidate — is what the three sections are designed to reward, and it is the single most useful thing to keep in front of you as you write.

A second point worth fixing early is the relationship between the three sections. They are not three essays stapled together; they are three views of one investigation. The two sources you evaluate in Section 1 should be sources you actually rely on in Section 2, and the difficulties you meet while researching and arguing should be exactly the difficulties you reflect on in Section 3. When the three sections talk to each other like this, the whole piece feels coherent and the marks come more easily. When they are written as unrelated tasks — a source exercise, then a history essay, then a paragraph of feelings — the seams show, and the examiner notices.

The IB History IA at a glance

The Historical Investigation is a single, self-directed enquiry of roughly 2,200 words, identical in task and length whether you are sitting History at Standard or Higher Level. It is marked out of 25 and reported in three distinct, clearly labelled sections that each reward something different. Because the task is the same at both levels, the weighting is the only thing that shifts: the IA accounts for 25% of the final grade at SL and 20% at HL, where the additional Higher Level paper takes a share of the total. The investigation must be your own, on a topic of genuine historical significance, and it should read like the work of a young historian rather than a school essay padded with quotations.

The word count is tighter than most students expect, and it is unforgiving. With the investigation alone carrying fifteen of the twenty-five marks, you simply cannot afford to spend three hundred words setting the scene or recounting background the examiner already understands. Treat the count as a discipline rather than a target: every sentence should either advance an argument, present a piece of evidence, or evaluate a source. A useful test, once you have a draft, is to read each paragraph and ask what mark it is reaching for. If a paragraph is not visibly serving Section 1, Section 2 or Section 3, it is probably costing you words you will want back later. The strongest investigations tend to come in close to the limit precisely because they have so much to say in the space, not because the writer has padded to reach it.

How the History IA is marked: the three sections

Every mark comes from one of the three sections below, and they are far from equally weighted — the investigation itself is worth more than twice the other two combined. Write your IA section by section and treat each one as a separate task with its own rules.

How to write a History IA, step by step

1. Pick a focused, researchable question. Aim for something you can argue, often "To what extent…" or "How significant…". A whole topic such as the causes of a war is far too wide; one decision, one turning point or one debate is the right size.
2. Find primary and secondary sources. Gather material that offers genuinely different perspectives, including historians who disagree, so that your investigation has something to weigh rather than a single account to repeat.
3. Evaluate two sources by OPVL. Choose the two sources central to your enquiry and assess each for Origin, Purpose, Value and Limitations in direct relation to your question.
4. Build an analytical argument with evidence and differing perspectives. Structure Section 2 around claims, each supported by referenced evidence and set against rival interpretations, rather than telling the story in order.
5. Reach a reasoned conclusion. End with a judgement that follows from the evidence you have presented, and be honest about where the evidence is thin.
6. Reflect on the historian's method. In Section 3, draw out what your own research taught you about reliability, bias, perspective and the limits of the historical record.
7. Reference rigorously. Footnote every source and supply a complete bibliography in a consistent style so the whole investigation is verifiable.

A word on choosing the question, because it determines almost everything that follows. The best questions are old enough to have a body of evidence and a settled historiography to argue with, but specific enough that you are not competing with library shelves of scholarship. Local and family history can work beautifully here, provided the topic is of wider significance: a single strike, one piece of legislation, a particular election, or the reception of one event in the contemporary press all give you something concrete to grip. Avoid anything so recent that the sources are thin or so famous that every possible line has been argued to death. If you cannot name, before you begin, the two or three interpretations you expect to weigh, the question is probably either too broad or too obscure.

Section 1 deserves more thought than students usually give it, because it sets up the whole investigation and is the easiest place to lose marks to carelessness. The two sources you choose should be ones you will genuinely depend on, and ideally they should pull in different directions — a participant's account beside a later scholarly analysis, for instance, so that the contrast itself becomes useful. When you evaluate them, resist the urge to spend your value and limitations on generic observations ("primary sources can be biased"). The marks are in the specific: what does this source, made by this person for this purpose, allow you to know about your question, and where exactly does it leave you blind? An evaluation that could be cut and pasted onto any other investigation is not really an evaluation at all.

Section 2 is where the marks are concentrated, and it rewards structure more than fluency. Plan it as a sequence of claims, each one a step in the argument, rather than as a story to be told in order. Within each claim, lead with the point, support it with referenced evidence, and then set it against the interpretation that would resist it — this is where historiography earns its place. You do not need to have read every historian on your topic, but you do need to show that you understand the debate is contested and that your reading of the evidence is a position among others. The conclusion should then feel inevitable: not a surprise, but the settling of an argument the reader has watched you build.

Section 3 is short — four marks, a few hundred words at most — but it is where many otherwise strong investigations quietly underperform, because students treat it as an afterthought. The reflection should grow out of a real problem you met: a source you wished you could verify, a gap in the record that forced you to infer, a moment where two accounts simply could not be reconciled. From that concrete difficulty you can open out to the wider methods and challenges of the historian — selection, reliability, perspective, the impossibility of full objectivity. The test of a good reflection is that it could only have been written by someone who actually did this investigation; a reflection that would suit any History IA has missed the point.

History IA structure: what goes in each section

The investigation is reported under three labelled headings. The clearest layout that maps onto the marks is:

• Section 1 — Identification & evaluation of sources — the question, why these two sources, and an OPVL evaluation of each tied to the enquiry.
• Section 2 — Investigation — an analytical, evidence-based argument that weighs perspectives and historiography and reaches a reasoned conclusion.
• Section 3 — Reflection — what the process revealed about the methods and challenges of the historian.
• Footnotes — a citation for every piece of evidence, in a single consistent style.
• Bibliography — a full, alphabetised list of every source consulted, separating primary and secondary where helpful.

Keep the three sections clearly signposted: examiners mark each against its own descriptor, so blurring them — drifting into argument in Section 1, or into source summary in Section 2 — costs marks that are otherwise easy to bank.

What a strong vs weak History IA looks like

The fastest way to lift your marks is to see the difference. The pairs below take the same investigation and show the weak and strong version of each move, so you can see exactly where the marks turn. Read them as patterns to copy rather than content to borrow: the skill on display — narrowing, evaluating, arguing — transfers to any topic.

The question

The source evaluation

The argument

Common mistakes that cost marks

• A question that is too broad. A whole war or era cannot be argued in 2,200 words — narrow it to one decision, debate or turning point.
• Summarising sources in Section 1. Describing what a source says is not evaluating it. Examiners want Origin, Purpose, Value and Limitations tied to your question.
• Narrating instead of arguing. A chronological retelling caps Section 2 — every paragraph needs a claim and analysis, not just events.
• Ignoring historiography. A top-band investigation engages with how historians have disagreed, not a single textbook line.
• A reflection that is a diary. Section 3 is about the methods and challenges of the historian, not how you felt about the deadline.
• Weak or inconsistent referencing. Missing footnotes and a patchy bibliography undermine the academic honesty the IA is built on.
• Going over the word count. Material beyond roughly 2,200 words is not rewarded — be concise and let the argument carry it.

History IA — frequently asked questions

Guidance written by experienced IB examiners and aligned to the current History guide. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the International Baccalaureate Organization.