How To Write a Compelling Essay Conclusion
Writing essays, in general, can be difficult, but if there’s one common issue, it’s writing a good conclusion. You might find you’re repeating yourself too much or not making much sense and neither of those things is going to get you good marks. Conclusions can be difficult, and that’s why we’ve come up with some ways to help you to write a compelling conclusion. By the end of this blog post you’ll be a conclusion expert – so keep reading!
Include a summary of your essay
Although you don’t want to directly repeat yourself in a conclusion, a quick summary of the most important points is useful to round up the ending. This should be one of the first things you do in your conclusion! It’ll give the reader a chance to reflect on everything they’ve read so far. It’s a reminder of what’s important before concluding what those points really mean for your subject. You don’t want this to be too long either, so just a couple of sentences will do. Remember you’re not rewriting, you’re summarising!
Link it back to your introduction
If there’s one way to show you’ve stayed on topic, it’s to link back to your introduction. Again, you don’t want to repeat anything but outline what you set out to do and whether you successfully fulfilled it. This is easiest if you’ve got a hypothesis or question you’ve aimed to answer throughout your writing. You can link back to your original theory from your intro and discuss how you’ve proved or disproved it. You don’t need to write too much for this either, but as long as you’ve got a clear link, it’s sure to impress.
Sell it to your reader
When you’re including the evidence you have and what you’ve found, it’s a good idea to really sell the importance of it all. Now it’s time to tell the reader what your results show! So, why is it relevant to your subject? What does your research demonstrate to the reader? You want your reader to see how you’ve proven the significance of your project and that the results are crucial to consider. By selling your essay it will stick in your readers’ mind because you’ve convinced them it’s worth thinking about. Remember, your teacher will have spent time reading lots of essays, so really make it stand out from the crowd!
Don’t introduce anything new
So, you’re going over the points in your essay and what they’ve shown, what you shouldn’t be doing is bringing up any new arguments. Your conclusion is there to do just that, conclude, so it’s not the place to be including any new information on your project. Any points like that should be in the main body of your essay. If you think you’ve got something extra to include that is really compelling, try fitting it in elsewhere.
Suggest what next steps you’ll take
In conclusion, people like to see what your essay means for the future. This is especially relevant for reflection pieces, for example. You want to lay out what you’re going to do next given what you know and have researched. This is also similar to saying what you’d do next time if you were to redo the work. You want to show your reader that you’ve considered the next steps you’re going to take and how the topic could be further expanded on. It will suggest you’ve planned thoroughly and are prepared to move it forward. It’s important when you do this that you actually think about what you’re going to say. Don’t make up what your next steps are going to be if they don’t make any sense. The readers will be able to figure out if you’re unsure.
Understand what you’d like the reader to take away
This depends quite a lot on what the subject to your essay is, but there should always be a point you want the reader to get from the essay. For many dissertation papers, there’s often something the reader should want to change by the time they’ve got to the ending. Maybe you’ve written about something that’s negatively affecting our world? Or for a more literary essay, for example, you might want the reader to know an overarching theme the author demonstrated. There’s always something the reader will need to know by the end of the essay, so make sure you have that bitmapped out clearly.
Include a quote
Something that’s become very popular in conclusions is to include a famous quote towards the end. This could be another way to keep your essay fresh in the reader’s mind, especially if that quote itself is quite thought-provoking. If this is something you’d like to do, then it’s best to choose an academic in your chosen field, so it’s relevant and respected. Of course, the quote has to be relevant too and quite strong to end your essay with. Finish strong!
Now, if you include all of these tips, then you’ve definitely got a compelling conclusion. Your conclusion writing is sure to be stepped up a notch, and it doesn’t have to be the daunting battle that it seems. If you’re really struggling, use essay writing services to help create the perfect essay to use as a guide for your own work! Let us know if you’ve got any conclusion tips in the comments below.