Turn teacher feedback into visible revisions

Read feedback alongside the task

Open the draft, the teacher's comments and the relevant task guidance together. Read the feedback once for the overall message before changing individual sentences. Identify whether the main problem concerns the question, evidence, method, reasoning, organization or presentation. The same comment can require different actions in an IA, extended essay or TOK task.

Confirm the feedback and draft arrangements that apply to your subject and cohort. Use permitted support to understand the issue, while making the decisions and writing yourself. School deadlines determine how much revision time is available.

Translate comments into completion conditions

Turn each important comment into an action and a way to check it. 'Analysis is descriptive' might become 'explain how this evidence changes the answer to my question.' 'Method is unclear' might become 'specify the measurement procedure so a reader can understand what was done.' Keep the original comment beside your interpretation.

If the meaning is uncertain, prepare a focused clarification for the next permitted teacher consultation. Show the passage, your understanding and the revision you intend to make. This gives the teacher a concrete issue to discuss.

Repair the foundation before polishing

Prioritize changes that affect the whole argument. An unsupported central claim, an unsuitable method or a question that the evidence cannot answer may require several paragraphs to change. Resolve those issues before editing commas or choosing new headings. Otherwise, careful polishing may be applied to material you later remove.

Order the revision list by dependency. If a graph must be recalculated, do that before rewriting the conclusion that relies on it. If the question is narrowed, revisit which sources and examples remain relevant.

Try an illustrative claim revision

Suppose a draft says, 'The dataset proves distance causes longer journeys,' and the teacher notes that the claim is too strong. A useful action is to inspect the dataset and method, identify what they establish and revise the inference. A possible sentence is, 'Within these observed journeys, longer distance was associated with longer travel time; traffic and stop frequency may also influence duration.'

That wording is illustrative and depends on an actual observed relationship. The meaningful revision also explains those possible influences and checks whether the rest of the draft still makes an unsupported causal claim.

Keep a short revision record

For each substantial change, note the comment, action, location and verification. A record helps you check whether the original issue has been addressed across the draft. Keep dated versions and research notes so you can trace changes and explain your work. Apply your course's reflection requirements separately where relevant.

• Change the reasoning or evidence that creates the problem.
• Update affected diagrams, calculations and conclusions together.
• Check new citations and preserve source details.
• Mark a comment resolved only after inspecting the revised passage.

Read the revision as a new reader

Read the whole draft without relying on what you intended to say. Check that the question, method, evidence and judgment agree. Explain a central paragraph aloud: if the logical connection is difficult to state, it may still need work. Then check presentation, references and word count under your task's rules. Save and inspect the final submission file, leaving time for any practical problem before the school deadline.