How To Write Effective Conclusions: Importance and Elements?

Introduction

Although they might be challenging to write, introductions and conclusions are important. These may significantly affect how a reader feels about your essay.

Similar to how your introduction serves as a bridge to take your readers from their daily lives to the "location" of your analysis, your conclusion might serve as a bridge to enable your readers return to their regular routines. With such a conclusion, people will be able to understand why all of your research and data should be important to them once they finish reading the article.

Your opportunity to say all about the topic will be in your conclusion. Your paper's conclusion gives you the opportunity to make a final statement about the topics you have discussed, to summarise your views, to highlight their significance, and to nudge your audience towards a fresh understanding of the topic. Also, it gives you the chance to leave a favourable impression and start off on the right foot.

Outside the parameters of the task, your conclusion is possible. The conclusion goes beyond the scope of the prompt and enables you to think about bigger ideas, forge new relationships, and comment on the importance of your discoveries.

Steps to Write an Effective Conclusion

Following steps will help you write a strong conclusion −

Restate the main idea

An excellent conclusion reminds the reader of the essay's primary argument and emphasises it once more. Do not, however, restate the thesis in its entirety. While maintaining the main premise, gently rephrase your argument.

Restate arguments in support

Along with restating your thesis, you should also restate the arguments you used to bolster it in the body of the article. Nevertheless, sum up the concepts rather than just restating the paper's arguments.

Connect the introductory and concluding sentences

Returning to the topics from the opening may be quite successful at providing the reader a feeling of closure. By employing like ideas, going back to an earlier incident, or using comparable visuals, you can achieve this.

Provide some clarification

The reader should come away from your conclusion with a solution, an understanding, some questions for more research, or a call to action. What conclusions does your reasoning lead to? What makes anyone care? You should respond to these kinds of queries here and give your viewers food for thought.

Types of Conclusions

Summarization

This kind of writing is frequently employed in technical writing with a more clinical tone, such as reports, surveys, and definitions. Because it summarises the essay's core themes, it is most frequently employed in lengthy works when readers will require a refresher on the essay's primary concepts. As a result, it needs to be clear of subjective concepts or allusions (like "in my opinion" or "I feel").

Editorialization

Editorialization is typically used in articles that have a contentious issue, a close personal connection, or a call to action. By writing in this manner, the author typically communicates their personal involvement in the topic under discussion as well as their comments on it. Anecdotes and a casual tone are used in this kind of conclusion to highlight issues, interpretations, political viewpoints, or sentiments.

Externalization

Often employed in essays that tackle a specific problem that is a component of a much more complicated subject, an externalised conclusion offers a segue onto a connected but distinct topic that encourages readers to continue the conversation. In fact, it's sometimes viewed as a brand-new start with an altogether new argument that may be developed into a different possible essay.

Techniques to Create A Strong Conclusion

You might use one or more of the following techniques to create a strong conclusion −

Take part in the "So What" Game

Get a buddy to read your conclusion aloud if you feel stuck or that it doesn't mention something particularly noteworthy or novel. Ask your companion to respond with "So what?" or "Why should anyone care?" whenever you make a statement based on your conclusion. Then consider that query and provide a response.

Bring up the subject or themes from the introduction once again

The reader completes the circle using this method. For instance, as evidence that your essay aids in the development of new knowledge, you may use the identical event that you described at the beginning as your conclusion. You may also make a reference to the opening sentence by employing words from that sentence or similar ideas and metaphors.

Summarize, not synthesise

Provide a succinct overview of the paper's major ideas but avoid just restating what was there. Show your reader how your ideas, the evidence you provided, and the examples you utilised all work together, instead. Bring everything together.

Add a thought-provoking observation or quotation from your reading or research for the article.

Provide a plan of action, a resolution to a problem, or inquiries for more research

This can reroute your reader's thinking, enabling her to apply your information and concepts to her own life or to see the consequences on a larger scale.

Indicate larger ramifications

For example, if your essay discusses a Civil Rights Movement event, you may discuss how it affected the movement as a whole. A paper on Virginia Woolf's writing style may discuss how she influenced other authors or later feminists.

When drafting your conclusion, keep the following in mind −

• The thesis, fresh concepts, and new proof shouldn't be introduced in the beginning. If you make any new arguments in your conclusion, pull them out and try to work them into one of your essay's body paragraphs.

• Verify that the tone you choose is consistent with the remainder of the article.

• Avoid starting the conclusion with words like "in closing," "in summary," or "in conclusion" as they are rather repetitive and superfluous.

Outline for a Conclusion

Sentence topic

You should now restate your thesis statement. To avoid repetition, make sure the language is changed.

Supporting Sentences

• The main ideas and arguments you presented throughout the paper should be summarised.

• Describe the relevance of the concepts and how they are related.

Closing Sentence

• This is when you make a connection to a statement, illustration, or anecdote from the introduction.

• It provides the reader with a sense of closure as it is your last statement on the matter.

Conclusion

In the end, the purpose of your conclusion is to make your readers happy they read your essay. Your conclusion offers the reader something to think about or enjoy your topic in ways that are meaningful to them individually. It may also imply more general implications that will not only be interesting to your reader but also maybe improve their quality of life. It's a gift you're giving the reader.