Essay Writing - CONCLUSIONS

The Conclusion

Some of the main functions of the conclusion are as follows:

to refer back to the question set in the title or framed in the introduction and show that it has been answered.
to point out what the essay or assignment has or has not done.
to demonstrate that the writer has done what she or he proposed to do in the introduction.
to put forward the writer's own analysis drawing upon the evidence presented in the rest of the essay.
to point the reader forward to a new related idea.

Students sometimes think that the conclusion to their essay is a good place to express their own opinion. Be careful how you do this, because the conclusion has to follow from the rest of the essay. You can't put forward the different sides of an argument in the essay and then simply say, 'Well, what I think is…'.
A better technique is to build up a case or an argument throughout the essay and then to use the conclusion to show how the evidence you have presented leads to a particular understanding of the topic of the essay.

Suggested exercise

Look at a number of different conclusions in the reading that you are doing, and look back over any conclusions that you may have written in previous essays,and consider the following questions.

How successful are these conclusions?
What phrases do they use to indicate to the reader that the piece of writing is coming to an end?
Do they fulfil any of the functions listed above?
Do they fulfil any additional functions?

next | index | back