Psychologists say that what was said at the end of a conversation is best remembered. For educational work this is doubly true: usually the teacher carefully reads only the introduction and conclusion. Therefore, it is so important a serious attitude to how to finish an essay.
Tips for writing a conclusion in an essay
Any student work – with the exception of the solution of problems involving a numerical answer – ends with a conclusion or conclusions. The conclusion in the essay is essentially similar to the conclusion in other works – for example, in the course paper or abstract:
- The final conclusion in the essay should be based on the facts and arguments set forth in the main part of the work, on the considered positions of scientists and the results of experiments. The final part of the essay should be consistent with the elements of expert opinion given in the text.
- The conclusion in the essay should not contain fundamentally new facts – only generalizations mentioned earlier.
- The style of the conclusion should correspond to the style of the whole work. If the work is written in a dry scientific style, you should not add artistic means to the conclusion, otherwise it will look like a foreign, artificially attached, and not an organic continuation. Similarly, if the publicistic style was taken as a basis: the conclusion should not be significantly stricter.
- Do not reinsure yourself with the words “In my humble opinion”, “Although I am not an expert” and the like. It looks like excuses and insecurities.
- The main thing is for the reader to understand that the essay is complete, a logical conclusion is present; so that there would be no feeling that the author wrote, wrote, and then distracted him, and the work remained unfinished.
Types of detention in the essay
There are several approaches to how to complete an essay:
- A rhetorical question. If the essay was written in the form of questions and answers, you can complete it with a rhetorical question, forcing the reader to think about what they read and formulate a conclusion for themselves.
Example 1
A rhetorical question does not imply a concrete answer, for example: “How much longer will our people suffer blatant injustice?” Does not imply an answer in the style of “Three years and two months”, but hints that it is time to change something.
- Summarizing the author’s position. The classic version of the completion of the text. It is enough to simply summarize the conclusion that follows from the above.
Example 2
This type of conclusion can be begun with the words “So”, “Thus”, “Having analyzed … it is possible to conclude”.
- Call for action.
Example 3
For educational essays, this is not very typical, but some social topics can be solved with the help of this conclusion, for example: “Let’s start with ourselves and stop smoking tomorrow”, “Take the phone and just call the closest person – the world will be a little better”.
- Using quotes. It is much easier to make a quotation in the epigraph, but sometimes it is relevant in the conclusion: “As we see, even today Lermontov’s remains“… the land of slaves, the land of gentlemen.
- Ring composition. The conclusion should overlap with the introduction. The simplest option: in the introduction, the question is posed, in conclusion, the answer is given to it: “Now we can confidently answer that …”.
Methods for writing conclusions in the essay
The method of writing conclusions should be chosen long before the essay is completed – preferably even before beginning work on the text. Examples of methods:
- In the process of writing the main part to jot down ideas for the ending. Putting forward and justifying a new thesis, jot it down on a separate sheet – then by the end of the work on the main part you will have a blank for conclusion.
- Imagine that the reader asks the question: “So what?”. Explain to him, with the help of a conclusion, why he read the entire text for nothing, that he should bear it for himself.
- Try to bring the reader to a higher level of awareness of your work. Do not just mechanically repeat what was said earlier, but make him want to answer, argue or share his experience.
Making a conclusion in an essay
One aspect of how to write a conclusion in an essay is design. The conclusion of the conclusion in the essay is very simple:
- No title is required (“conclusion”, “conclusions” or the like). You do not even need to start the conclusion of a new page. It is enough to complete the thought (constituting the last part of the main text of the work) and smoothly proceed to the formulation of conclusions.
- The conclusion begins with a new paragraph without special delimiters (no need to scratch it out or use other means).
- The conclusion should be commensurate with the essay itself. If the essay takes 3 pages, it is inappropriate to withdraw one and a half of them to a conclusion. According to the general principle, the conclusion should be 5-10% of the amount of work; accordingly, in a three-page essay it should be about a third of a page.
- The font parameters do not change when writing a conclusion: if the entire text is written in size 14 Times New Roman, the conclusion is also written.