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STEPS TO BETTER WRITING 43: LEARNING TO CONCLUDE
Some students consider the concluding paragraph to be the most troublesome in the essay. Writing a conclusion should not be difficult for you if you keep the following points in mind.
| 1 | Your conclusion can be a summary of the main points of your essay (stated in different words, of course, than how they appeared earlier), along with a restatement of your thesis (also in different words). |
| 2 | Your conclusion will be smoother if you relate it in some way to the last supporting paragraph by repeating an appropriate key word or idea. |
| 3 | If your reader needs to see the relevance of your idea to his life or to the world in general, your conclusion might point this out. |
| 4 | Sometimes the reader comes to the end of an essay asking, "So what?” In that case, the concluding paragraph needs to make the importance clear. |
| 5 | Try constructing a conclusion that is an "upside-down funnel." That is, start with a restatement of the thesis and then enlarge the idea with statements that become more and more general to show the setting which gives the idea its significance. |
| 6 | If your paper is short and you feel that a conclusion would sound "tacked on," solve the problem by writing an extended clincher for the last supporting paragraph, in which you "echo" the thesis statement. |
Look again at the essay that you wrote for Step 39. Write a better conclusion for it by following some of the suggestions listed above.
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