5.5 Conclusions
Conclusions can be just as vital as any other part of an essay, and often the most vital part, so avoid the natural temptations to short-cut at the end. Two common short-cuts to avoid are mere stopping, and merely repeating. The conclusion that simply stops discussing the ideas at some point has failed to conclude them, as has the conclusion that simply re-states what has already been said in the essay.
The best way to conclude is through emphasis: find a new way to encapsulate the most important ideas that have been conveyed in the essay. This does not mean introducing new ideas, which would add confusion, but instead to help readers see what is most important in all that has been discussed, or what is the most important way to understand it all.
One good strategy for this is to use a brief and poignant phrase or quotation. Another good strategy is to use a metaphor: a description of an interesting image that stands for an important idea.
As you work through your conclusion, note that this is the best place for humility. Be honest in admitting shortcomings in your ideas, explanations, or comprehensiveness. This approach in an introduction can leave the impression of an unsure or unfocused writer, but after a succession of clear ideas throughout an essay, humility in the conclusion shows a writer who is honest and thoughtful. This is not to be confused with contradiction, false humility, self-deprecation, or un-rebutted opposition. Instead, the humility of honesty is the aim here.
Finally, try using the tone of elevation: hint at higher, nobler possibilities relating to your subject. Some of the greatest writers and speakers in history have used this strategy in their conclusions, as can be seen in many of the readings in this textbook and beyond.
The rhythms of the three can also help you write shorter text that better conveys your thinking. Take the example below:
The industrialization—and dehumanization—of American animal farming is a relatively new, evitable, and local phenomenon: no other country raises and slaughters its food animals quite as intensively or as brutally as we do. Were the walls of our meat industry to become transparent, literally or even figuratively, we would not long continue to do it this way. Tail-docking and sow crates and beak-clipping would disappear overnight, and the days of slaughtering 400 head of cattle an hour would come to an end. For who could stand the sight? Yes, meat would get more expensive. We’d probably eat less of it, too, but maybe when we did eat animals, we’d eat them with the consciousness, ceremony, and respect they deserve.
—Michael Pollan, “An Animal’s Place”
We often round up vast and complex concepts into tidy rhythms of three—three words, three phrases, and three ideas. When we speak of something in a pattern of three, we sum it up at a high order of abstraction. In other words, we are taking a detailed discussion and elevating it. This tendency to sum up and elevate makes patterns of three excellent tools for conclusions in essays.
Common errors in conclusions
- Ending on a minor point or detail
- Introducing new material
- Contradicting your thesis
- Changing your thesis
- Issuing commands, getting aggressive, or sounding exclamatory
Ending on a minor point or detail drives the entire essay off-topic because it suggests something other than the main idea as the most important. Move minor points and details to the appropriate body paragraph.
Introducing new material in your conclusion has an unsettling effect on your reader. When you raise new points, you make your reader want more information, which you could not possibly provide in the limited space of your final paragraph.
Contradicting or changing your thesis statement causes your readers to think that you do not actually have a conviction about your subject. After all, you have spent several paragraphs adhering to a singular point of view. When you change sides or open up your point of view in the conclusion, your reader becomes less inclined to believe your original argument.
Issuing commands, getting aggressive, or sounding exclamatory works against the aims and expectations of academic argument, for it shows the writer’s failure to trust the points and support the essay has offered, as well as the failure to trust in the capability of the audience to use their own minds appropriately.
Attributions
The Writing Textbook by Josh Woods, editor, and contributor, as well as an unnamed author (by request from the original publisher), and other authors named separately is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
This chapter has additions, edits, and organization by James Charles Devlin.
