IB Economics: Choosing IA Articles — FAQ

Choose an article that's recent, from a real news source, and clearly linked to one economic theory you can diagram and analyse in 800 words. Avoid articles that are too broad, too old, or that just describe an event without an underlying economic issue to unpack.

A good article has a specific, analysable economic event — a price change, a policy, a market shift — not just general commentary. It should give you enough real data (prices, quantities, percentages) to build a diagram and support your evaluation with actual figures, not guesswork.

No — each of your three commentaries must be based on a different section of the syllabus (chosen from Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, and The Global Economy), so the underlying economic issue needs to genuinely differ, not just the headline or country.

Your article must be published within 12 months of the date you submit your internal assessment to the IB — not the date you write the commentary. Always check your school's internal deadline, since that's usually earlier than the official IB submission date.

Each commentary has an 800-word limit, and this applies at both SL and HL. Titles, diagrams, references and the bibliography don't count towards the total, but examiners do penalise commentaries that run noticeably over.

One clearly labelled, correctly drawn diagram per commentary is the expectation — a demand and supply curve, a market failure diagram, a macroeconomic model, whatever fits your article. Quality matters far more than quantity; one accurate diagram beats three rushed ones.

Match the article's core event to a specific model, not a whole topic. A fuel price rise fits price elasticity of demand and consumer surplus; a factory closure fits externalities or market failure. Pick one central theory and build your whole commentary around it.

The three commentaries together are marked out of 45 against five criteria: Diagrams, Terminology, Application, Analysis and Evaluation. Evaluation carries the most weight, so a commentary with a solid diagram but weak evaluation will still underperform.

The three I see every session: articles with no real data to analyse, diagrams that don't match the article's actual event, and evaluation that just repeats the analysis instead of questioning it. All three are fixable with a sharper article choice from the start.

Yes — the IA is worth 30% of the final grade at SL but only 20% at HL, since HL students sit an additional written paper. The commentary requirements themselves — three articles, 800 words each — are identical at both levels.

It's a meaningful chunk of the final mark — 30% at SL, 20% at HL — so it's worth your child treating article selection as seriously as exam revision. A weak IA is hard to fully compensate for on exam day, even with strong Paper 1–3 performance.

Reputable business and economics sections of established news outlets work best — look for reporting on price changes, government policy, taxes, or market events with real figures attached. Avoid opinion columns, blogs, or textbook-style summaries with no original data.

Yes, within limits — you can help your child spot suitable articles, check publication dates, and ask questions that push their evaluation deeper, but the analysis, diagrams and writing must be entirely the student's own work under the IB's academic integrity policy.