WRITING CONCLUSIONS
For a long
research paper, conclusions really count.
·
They
sum up what you’ve covered in the paper—restating the major points, reviewing
the major connections or points of comparison between your topics.
·
They
restate your thesis—but now in a much more final, definitive form than the
tentative one that you proposed in your introduction.
e.g., in
the intro: Can it be demonstrated that proprietary technical schools are inferior
to community colleges in their ability to provide successful, high quality
training that leads to good jobs? (Introductions often provide their thesis
in the form of a question.)
Or
This paper will examine the
relative merits of proprietary technical schools and community colleges,
focusing on their ability to transition their graduates into good jobs.
(Here, the
thesis is in the form of a statement)
Vs.:
Technical schools cannot deliver the same
level of high quality training as community colleges, and they rarely follow
through on their promises of getting graduates the good jobs that will allow
their students to pay off the large debt load that they’ve accumulated.
(Here, the thesis comes in a clear and
definitive final statement.)
BUT THAT’S
NOT ALL THEY DO.
·
They
can bring your paper full circle, returning to your opening anecdote, lead-in
self-disclosure, or however else you opened the paper—and finish the story.
(e.g., you can come back to your own story about why you decided to become a
teacher, and now use the results of your research to reaffirm your commitment
to take that path—to make a difference)
·
They
can look to the future, speculate on alternative visions of how things
could be.
·
They
can extend your discussion from the immediate topic at hand to larger
issues (e.g., larger issues related to
our society’s refusal to invest long-term in education; larger implications of
our society’s refusal to ignore the nutritional needs of its children), taking
it to a higher level, meditating on the ethical or deeper social issues
involved.
·
They
can apply the fruits of your research to other relevant areas (e.g., how
the positive elements of home schooling or of charter schools can be applied to
the mainstream school system, and how this could improve that system; or how
the lessons learned from the failure of drug education could be applied to sex
education or other similar curricula)
·
They
can pose questions for the reader, returning the ball to the reader’s
court—thought-provoking, difficult questions that must be pondered and
meditated on, for which there are no easy answers.
·
They
can provide a final quote that seems to embody what you have learned
from your project, a quote that works to draw the various strands of your paper
together.
The
III. Conclusion
A. Summary/Restatement of Thesis (i.e., the
first set
of
bullet points above)
B. Lead-Out
(one or more of the second set of bullet
points)
As you can see, the Conclusion is
thus a “mirror-image” of the Introduction—where you opened with a “lead-in,”
then moved on to indicate the thesis and major topics to be covered.
Your opening thus draws the reader
into your paper, and your closing leads them out.