List of TOK Examples to Avoid

When it comes to TOK essays, students usually know they are often encouraged to use original evidence. It’s always more encapsulating to markers when students have their own creative original flair such as the use of real-life examples or a story examiners have never heard of before.

However, when it comes to ‘original evidence’, having them doesn’t make your essay better. It just implies that you’ve taken some time to do your research and not using the first thing you just popped up from Google last minute.

Examples of Bad Examples

In 2016, the IB released a list of examples commonly used by students. The list is non-exhaustive and we believe not all examples are atrocious. It’s not mandatory to avoid them, but it might be a good-to-avoid if you are aiming to leave your marker with an impression.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This list of examples doesn’t mean you should avoid them. Rather, it means you should use them with caution. Some examples can still work for your essays if you are able to link them well towards your argument. Remember, it’s all about crafting well-formulated arguments for TOK essays!

Here's the official list:

1. Serendipitous discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming

2. Mark Rothko and environmental influences on his work

3. String theory and the role of evidence in the sciences

4. Margaret Mead's perspective during fieldwork in Samoa

5. The human aspects of the story of the discovery of DNA and of its structure from Friedrich Miescher to James Watson, Francis Crick and Rosalind Franklin

6. Bloodletting as an example of an obsolete practice in medical science

7. The value of the Enigma code and the work of Alan Turing

8. Alchemy as the necessary precursor to modern chemistry

9. Pablo Picasso and Guernica

10. Vincent van Gogh and Starry Night

11. Leonardo da Vinci, the Mona Lisa and Vitruvian Man

12. Isaac Newton and the compatibility of his scientific achievements and his religious orientation

13. Persistence of "anti-vaxxers" despite the exposure of Andrew Wakefield's claims in relation to MMR vaccine as fraudulent

14. The applications of imaginary numbers

15. Ludwig van Beethoven's deafness and reliance on "feeling"

16. Rounding of numbers (eg pi) as examples of simplification and inaccuracy in mathematics

17. Polynomials, factorisation and complexity

18. Music therapy as an application of knowledge in the arts

19. Different notations and ways of doing differentiation from Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz

20. Thomas Edison and the invention of the light bulb

21. The Hiroshima bomb versus nuclear fission reactors with respect to the value of knowledge

22. Work in number theory by Pythagoras, Pierre de Fermat and Andrew Wiles

23. Membrane structure from Davson/Danielli to Singer/Nicholson and the fluid mosaic model

24. Galileo Galilei’s house arrest and Pope John Paul II's admission of error in 1992

25. Friedrich Wöhler’s blow to vitalism with the non-biological synthesis of urea

26. Atomic theories from John Dalton to JJ Thompson to Ernest Rutherford to Niels Bohr to Erwin Schrödinger

27. Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer on language and eye witnesses

28. Francesco Redi, Louis Pasteur and the disproof of spontaneous generation

29. Alfred Wegener and continental drift

30. Lera Boroditsky’s article on Australian aboriginal orientation

31. Caloric vs kinetic theory with respect to "natural selection" in scientific knowledge

32. Leonhard Euler's equation allegedly having value without application

33. Development of heliocentrism from Aristarchus to Copernicus

34. Thalidomide prescribed for morning sickness and leprosy

35. The outcomes of the work of Fritz Haber for fertilizer and explosives

36. The Riemann hypothesis, large primes and Internet security

37. The Treaty of Versailles and the subsequent rise of Nazism in Germany

38. George Orwell's perspective as presented in Animal Farm

39. Thomas Young’s double-slit experiment and wave-particle duality in physics

40. The ethics of Edward Jenner's work on smallpox and vaccination

41. August Kekulé's dream and the structure of benzene

42. Antonio Damasio and somatic marker theory

43. Fritz Fischer and the alleged causes of WWI

44. Occam's razor with respect to Albert Einstein’s special relativity and Hendrik Lorentz’s ether

45. Gregor Mendel and overly neat experimental results for segregation and independent assortment (also Robert Millikan and determination of the electric charge on the electron)

46. Jackson Pollock’s art and the use of WOKs

47. The Amish and rejection of modern technology

48. The Phillips curve and transient accuracy in economics

49. Lock-and-key and induced fit models of enzyme action

50. Spherical and hyperbolic geometries as perspectives in mathematics

51. Confirmation bias and persistent error in the accepted human chromosome number

52. CERN and the Higgs boson as applied knowledge

53. Standard rival interpretations of the Cold War: traditional, revisionist, post-revisionist

54. Albert Einstein and the cosmological constant

55. Edwin Hubble and expansion of the universe

56. Ignaz Semmelweis and childbed fever

57. Conventional current and electron flow

58. The Nanjing massacre and perspectives

59. Alfred Adler and schemas in psychology as the basis for perspectives

60. Biston betularia and industrial melanism as an example of natural selection

61. Detection of gravitational waves in accordance with predictions from Einstein’s theory of general relativity

62. Feynman diagrams and quantum electrodynamics with respect to simplicity and understanding

63. Physiology from Galen to the discovery of blood circulation by William Harvey

64. The complexity of the chemistry of photosynthesis as presented at various stages of education

65. The patient’s “perspective” in connection with the use of placebos in medical testing

66. Heinrich Hertz and the subsequent application of radio waves