Twenty-Eighth Lesson

Writing the conclusion

The conclusion of a piece of writing is your last opportunity to brings together what you have been saying in a form that will tell your reader, 'Thus is really where all that I have been leading; this is what I want you, the reader, to think at the end of my essay'. 

This final statement must arise out of the piece of writing itself. One piece of advice that writing advisers give is that you don't introduce new information in the conclusion. However, one exception to this is that you might point the way to further work that your piece could lead to.   

We have just suggested that you consider writing your introduction last. Now we are also suggesting that it can be useful to draft your conclusion at an early stage in your writing. This can give you a sense of direction, helping you clearly where you are heading and what you have to do in your easy in order to get your reader to your final point. 

What the conclusion may do

• Refer back to the question posted in the title and show that it has been answered. 

• Give a sense of the ending.

• Point out what the assignment has and has not answered. 

• Show that the writer has done what they proposed to do. 

• Put forward the writer's point of view in the light of the evidence they have presented.

• Allow the writer to be positive about the ideas in the assignment. 

• Point the reader forward to a new related idea.

• Summarize the answers to the questions the assignment set out to address, signalled in the introduction. 

Activity Eighteen: Investigating conclusion

Look for some conclusions in your own work or in any reading you are doing. Check them against the above list. What are these conclusion doing? Do they work well to sum up for the reader the message of the text?