How to Write an Essay Conclusion

Despite the best efforts of modern education, students still struggle with essays. From the research to the last written word, students typically find essays exhausting and hardly worth the effort. Organizing an effective essay is half the battle, but there are some hidden grenades waiting for them on the writing battlefield. These booby traps include the introduction and the conclusion – two paragraphs that most individuals overlook, believing them to be less important than the essay’s body. This is a dangerous an incorrect notion: the introduction and conclusion are imperative to the quality of your essay!

While the introduction is tough, it is often found that the conclusion is tougher. Students are of the mindset that they can just breeze through the conclusion with no real thought or effort. After all, it’s just restating everything you already said, right? Wrong. A conclusion is essential to wrapping up your entire paper and making it exist as one singular idea. To write an excellent conclusion, always make sure you employ the following strategies while you are writing:

• Leave a lasting impression. The conclusion is your last chance to really get the reader on your side. Put some emphasis and finesse in those last few sentences. As with the introduction, you can make it entertaining or use a quirky hook. Readers are most likely to remember the beginning and the end of what they read – so try to make both introduction and conclusion memorable.
• Relate back to the introduction. The whole reason you wrote this essay was because of your thesis – so shouldn’t your conclusion hearken back to that? Always review your thesis in the conclusion; it will guide your reader back to the whole overarching point of the essay.
• Wrap it up. If you’re essay is meant to answer a question, than the conclusion should answer it – reviewing the evidence you explained in the body. If your essay was meant to persuade someone to a point of view, sum up your argument and why it makes sense. A conclusion should basically provide some closure on the proposition stated in your introduction. Don’t leave it open-ended. Provide a solid, valid conclusion that will leave your reader with a sense of completion.
• Sum up in a unique way. A conclusion should generally summarize what you discovered, stated or argued in your essay – but that doesn’t mean it should be repetitive. Give your readers an overview of what they read, but do it in a new way that won’t leave them snoring. This is your last paragraph, after all – you don’t want tem dozing out now!