This handout will explain the functions of conclusions, offer strategies for writing effective ones, help you evaluate your drafted conclusions, and suggest conclusion strategies to avoid. Introductions and conclusions can be the most difficult parts of papers to write. An introduction and conclusion frame your thoughts and bridge your ideas for the reader. Just as your introduction acts as a bridge that transports your readers from their own lives into the place of your analysis, your conclusion can provide a bridge to help your readers make the transition back to their daily lives.

Such a conclusion will help them see why all your analysis and information should matter to them after they put the paper down. The conclusion allows you to have the final say on the issues you have raised in your paper, to synthesize your thoughts, to demonstrate the importance of your ideas, and to propel your reader to a new view of the subject. It is also your opportunity to make a good final impression and to end on a positive note. The conclusion pushes beyond the boundaries of the prompt and allows you to consider broader issues, make new connections, and elaborate on the significance of your findings. Your conclusion gives your reader something to take away that will help them see things differently or appreciate your topic in personally relevant ways. It can suggest broader implications that will not only interest your reader, but also enrich your reader’s life in some way.

One or more of the following strategies may help you write an effective conclusion. If you’re stuck and feel like your conclusion isn’t saying anything new or interesting, ask a friend to read it with you. Whenever you make a statement from your conclusion, ask the friend to say, so what? or why should anybody care? then ponder that question and answer it. Here’s how it might go: you: basically, i’m just saying that education was important to douglass. friend: so what? you: well, it was important because it was a key to him feeling like a free and equal citizen. friend: why should anybody care? you: that’s important because plantation owners tried to keep slaves from being educated so that they could maintain control. When douglass obtained an education, he undermined that control personally. you can also use this strategy on your own, asking yourself so what? as you develop your ideas or your draft.

For example, if you begin by describing a scenario, you can end with the same scenario as proof that your essay is helpful in creating a new understanding. You may also refer to the introductory paragraph by using key words or parallel concepts and images that you also used in the introduction. Synthesize, don’t summarize: include a brief summary of the paper’s main points, but don’t simply repeat things that were in your paper. Instead, show your reader how the points you made and the support and examples you used fit together. Include a provocative insight or quotation from the research or reading you did for your paper. Propose a course of action, a solution to an issue, or questions for further study. This can redirect your reader’s thought process and help her to apply your info and ideas to her own life or to see the broader implications.

For example, if your paper examines the greensboro sit ins or another event in the civil rights movement, you could point out its impact on the civil rights movement as a whole. A paper about the style of writer virginia woolf could point to her influence on other writers or on later feminists. Beginning with an unnecessary, overused phrase such as in conclusion, in summary, or in closing. Although these phrases can work in speeches, they come across as wooden and trite in writing.

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Making sentimental, emotional appeals that are out of character with the rest of an analytical paper. People write this kind of conclusion when they can’t think of anything else to say. Example: in conclusion, frederick douglass was, as we have seen, a pioneer in american education, proving that education was a major force for social change with regard to slavery. Sometimes writers will state the thesis for the very first time in the conclusion. You might be tempted to use this strategy if you don’t want to give everything away too early in your paper.

You may think it would be more dramatic to keep the reader in the dark until the end and then wow him with your main idea, as in a sherlock holmes mystery. The reader, however, does not expect a mystery, but an analytical discussion of your topic in an academic style, with the main argument thesis stated up front. Example: after a paper that lists numerous incidents from the book but never says what these incidents reveal about douglass and his views on education: so, as the evidence above demonstrates, douglass saw education as a way to undermine the slaveholders’ power and also an important step toward freedom. This kind of conclusion usually draws on emotion to make its appeal, but while this emotion and even sentimentality may be very heartfelt, it is usually out of character with the rest of an analytical paper. A more sophisticated commentary, rather than emotional praise, would be a more fitting tribute to the topic. Example: because of the efforts of fine americans like frederick douglass, countless others have seen the shining beacon of light that is education. This kind of conclusion includes extra information that the writer found or thought of but couldn’t integrate into the main paper.

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You may find it hard to leave out details that you discovered after hours of research and thought, but adding random facts and bits of evidence at the end of an otherwise well organized essay can just create confusion. Example: in addition to being an educational pioneer, frederick douglass provides an interesting case study for masculinity in the american south. He also offers historians an interesting glimpse into slave resistance when he confronts covey, the overseer.