Daughter chose a machine learning topic for her IB extended essay. That's my job.

sage_paper_221919 Jun 2026

She's going into the second year of the Diploma, and the extended essay draft is due soon after school reopens. She has picked a question about bias in image classifiers, which is very close to what I work on every day. She wants me to 'just look at it'. I want to help, and I also know that if I start, I'll end up rewriting her method section without meaning to. Her supervisor will notice, and more importantly, it stops being hers. Where did other parents draw the line? Reading it once? Talking only about sources? Not looking at all?

4 comments

cinnamon_sandal_905819 Jun 2026
Our son's essay is on the same timeline. His school sent a note saying parents may discuss ideas but not edit, and the supervisor signs off that the work is the student's own. We've kept to asking questions and pointing out where he hasn't explained something. It's slower, and he gets annoyed, but it stays his.
- plum_kettle_342619 Jun 2026
  Questions are the right line. When younger relatives ask me to 'check' a biology essay, I ask them to read a paragraph aloud and tell me what it means. Most of the time they find the problem themselves before I say a word.
lilac_gecko_783519 Jun 2026
I supervise postgraduate students, and the most useful thing a knowledgeable person can do is ask 'how do you know that?' and then stop talking. Once you rewrite a paragraph, neither of you can un-see it. The stopping is the hard part 🤷
mellow_kite_469320 Jun 2026
I mark undergraduate dissertations. A parent-written section usually gives itself away through a sudden change in vocabulary halfway down a page. Supervisors are good at spotting it, so the risk is practical, not only a matter of principle.
rose_veranda_332320 Jun 2026
from the coordinator side, the conversation i dread is when a supervisor asks a student to explain a paragraph in their own essay and they can't. have her explain it to you instead of you reading it
- sage_paper_221921 Jun 2026
  That turned out to be the useful way round. She explained the first section to me last night and found two gaps herself while talking. I said nothing, which was harder than it sounds.