The historical investigation

The historical investigation is the internal assessment (IA) in IB History: a short piece of research on a question about the past that you choose yourself. You frame an inquiry question, select a small set of sources, analyse what each one can and cannot tell you, and combine their evidence into an argued answer. Your teacher marks it and the IB moderates a sample of each school's work. The task and the criteria are the same at SL and HL.

What is official and what is reported

The full History guide for the current course (first assessment 2028) is available only to schools. The IB has published a subject brief and a page of course updates, and teachers and publishers with access to the guide have described the rest. Most of the details agree across those descriptions, but it helps to know which facts come from the IB itself and which come from teachers.

The three sections

Each section has its own job, but they form one piece of work. The diagram of the three sections shows the marks and the lengths teachers suggest, and how each section leads into the next.

Section 1: the historical inquiry question

Section 1 states your question and explains how it developed: what first interested you, how reading and early source work narrowed it, and why the final wording is answerable and open to debate. It also names the historical concept your question uses and explains how that concept shapes the investigation. The IB says the new IA puts greater emphasis on explaining the development of the question, so a bare statement of the question is not enough. The page on Section 1 covers this in full.

Section 2: sources and perspectives

Section 2 explains why you chose your sources and analyses them as evidence for your question. Its central idea is perspective: each source sees the past from a particular position (a government, a protester, a victim, a journalist, a historian writing decades later), and that position shapes what it can show. A good Section 2 groups sources by perspective and weighs the value and limitations of each for this question, rather than describing them one by one.

Section 3: synthesis and evaluation

Section 3 is the investigation itself and carries half the marks. It answers the question with a sustained argument in which evidence from several sources is combined in each paragraph (synthesis), the reliability and perspective of that evidence is weighed as the argument goes (evaluation), and the conclusion follows from what has been shown. A narrative of events, or a source-by-source summary, cannot reach the higher marks however well researched it is.

The rules in detail

Word count

Teacher sources report a maximum of 2,200 words for the three sections together, with the total stated at the start of the work. Headings, the title page, footnote references and the bibliography are reported not to count. A moderator is not expected to read beyond the limit, so anything past 2,200 words may simply not be marked. Notes, appendices and long footnotes are not a way round the limit: an argument placed in a footnote is either not read or counts as part of the text.

The commonly suggested split is about 400 words for Section 1, 400 for Section 2 and 1,400 for Section 3. This is advice that follows the marks, not a rule. A Section 2 that analyses seven sources well may need 500 words; if it does, take the words from Section 1, never from Section 3.

Seven sources at most

The IB caps the investigation at seven sources so that you work closely with each one. A "source" is anything you cite: a document, a photograph, a memoir, an interview, a book, an article, a website. If a fact in your text needs a reference, the reference must be one of your seven, so the cap also limits where your background knowledge can come from. Choose sources that between them give the widest useful range of perspectives, and expect to analyse every one of them in Section 2.

A link to a historical concept

Your question is reported to need a clear link to at least one historical concept. The four concepts of the course are the safest: cause and consequence, continuity and change, perspectives, and significance. The concept usually shows in the wording of the question itself ("How significant was …", "To what extent did … change …", "What was the main cause of …"). Section 1 then explains how the concept shapes what you investigate.

Choosing a topic

• Almost any period and region may be chosen, including topics you have not studied in class and local or family history, as long as the topic is historical and there are sources you can reach. Publisher sources report no formal date limits, but one teacher site gives 750 CE as the earliest date, so confirm with your teacher before choosing an earlier topic.

• Recent events are allowed if they are treated historically: you can investigate the causes of a crisis in the last 20 years, but its consequences are probably still unfolding and cannot yet be judged.

• The question must not be the same as your Extended Essay question; check your school's policy if both are in History.

• Check sources before committing to a topic. A fascinating question with no accessible sources in a language you read cannot be investigated.

Your teacher's role

Your teacher guides the choice of topic and question, may discuss your plan, and may give feedback on one draft, either written or spoken. Teachers may not edit or correct the draft, and the version you hand in after that feedback is the final one. A complete draft therefore gets far more useful feedback than a half-finished one.

What changed from the old IA

Many of the IA guides, videos and sample investigations online were written for the previous course (first assessment 2017, last exams November 2027). Much of their advice on research and writing still holds, but the structure has changed, so match any old advice to the new sections before using it.

YouTube

Referencing and academic integrity

The investigation must be your own work, and everything you take from someone else must be acknowledged where you use it. The IB treats a failure to do this as academic misconduct, whether it was deliberate or careless, and the penalty can be the loss of the IA mark or of the diploma.

Footnotes and the bibliography

History uses footnotes. Place a footnote number after the sentence (or the quotation) that uses a source, and give the reference at the foot of the page; the first reference to a source is full, later ones are short. The bibliography at the end lists the sources you cited, alphabetically by author's surname, and nothing else. Chicago style is the usual choice; whichever style your school uses, apply it consistently.

AI tools

The IB does not ban AI tools, but it treats AI-generated text, ideas or images like any other source: if you use them, you must say so, in the text and in your references. Text produced by an AI and presented as your own is plagiarism. Check with your teacher how your school wants AI use recorded; many ask for a short statement at the end of the work listing the tool, the date and what it was used for.

Planning the investigation

The investigation has 20 hours of class time, usually spread over a term, plus your own reading and writing. The timeline of a model twelve-week plan sets out the order of the work.

Three points in the plan matter most. The working question in week 3 is provisional: it will almost always change once you read the sources, and the story of how it changed is the material for Section 1. Source selection in weeks 4 and 5 should start from more than seven candidates, so that you choose the seven that give the best range of perspectives instead of using whatever you found first. The draft in weeks 8 and 9 should be complete, because it is the only one your teacher may comment on.

Common mistakes

Teachers and moderators of the previous IA reported the same problems year after year, and most of them apply equally to the new task.

Before you submit

• To do:

  My question is a debatable "To what extent …?", "How far …?" or "How significant …?" question with clear limits of time, place and focus.

• To do:

  Section 1 explains how and why my question developed and how it uses at least one historical concept.

• To do:

  I use no more than seven sources, and every one of them is cited and analysed.

• To do:

  Section 2 explains why I chose each source and analyses its perspective, value and limitations for my question.

• To do:

  Section 3 is organised by argument, combines evidence from several sources in each paragraph and reaches a reasoned conclusion that answers the question.

• To do:

  The word count (2,200 at most, as my teacher confirms) is stated at the start, and nothing essential is hidden in footnotes.

• To do:

  Every quotation, fact and idea from someone else has a footnote, and the bibliography lists exactly the sources I cited.

• To do:

  Any use of AI tools is acknowledged in the way my school asks.

• To do:

  I have read the official criteria with my teacher and checked my work against them.