Being a science oriented student I decided to undertake my Extended essay in any one of the sciences: Biology or Chemistry. At the very first I was too confused about which subject to select, I was constantly juggling between chemistry and biology. In the first few months I searched for topics on chemistry and biology, and each and every day I used to come up with a new topic and was not able to choose between biology and chemistry. After a month of dedication on research, I opted for biology and my teachers approved my topic on milk analysis and this led to finalizing the subject. Their keen interest and encouragement motivated me to take up research in biology. I read several articles and journals for finding a topic of my interest and finally I got one of them from an online journal. Later on, I realized that this topic was not of my interest so I switched on to a topic related to Lycopene content in different fruits. This topic intrigued me to such an extent that I researched on each and every aspect, I gained a lot of knowledge but, the challenges such as finding an appropriate topic to write upon tested my patience and decision making skills.
After I was ready with the topic and the plan for the extended essay write up, I finally started researching about Lycopene and the first step was to find out what role does Lycopene play in the daily life, what are the sources of Lycopene and the chemical structure and its properties.
After a thorough research, I got a clear understanding of framing a research question. It took me quite some time to frame a research question because every time I used to find something new in any of the literature sources I used to get confused as to what all things to include in the research question. The challenging task was to make the research question focused but with several tries and guidance of my mentors I could come up with a focused research question where the concentration of Lycopene is compared among different fruit samples.
After framing the research question I had to spend a lot of time researching on the methodology for extraction of Lycopene. I used to look up several methodologies and try it out in the lab and during that process, I failed twice but on the third try, I was successful because I chose the most appropriate method. Later on, I started writing up the extended essay but, every time I used to start up writing, I had no idea where to start from and whenever I used to find anything on the internet I had to make sure it is reliable and validating with other literature sources was also one of the challenging tasks.
In the end, I had to write the final extended essay and organizing the write up was so difficult that it took me weeks to restructure the essay and make amendments. I think I did a good job in rechecking my own write-up, again and again, to make sure that it is error free and it sounds like a formal academic piece. All I am proud of is the dedication that I had put forward to research on the topic thoroughly. The bibliography says it all because it reflects upon the knowledge that I have gained by reading these research paper and articles from all over the internet. I think I have made the best use of my research skills for writing my extended essay.