Conclusion is usually the last section in an essay.
Since they give you the final chance to leave a lasting impression on the reader, they are considered as important as introductions.
They cover the whole paper and are as critical as other essay elements such as the essay thesis statement.
Table of Contents
- Overview of a Conclusion
- Purpose of a Conclusion
- Rules for Writing a Conclusion
- Tips for Writing a Good Conclusion
- How to Write a Conclusion for an Essay
- Conclusion Examples for an Essay
Overview of a Conclusion
It has been observed that some audience start with going through the conclusion to help decide whether to read the whole essay.
Therefore, crafting a conclusion is one of the most important steps to essay writing.
Writing an effective conclusion can however be challenging.
In this case, good conclusion examples for essay come in handy.
Purpose of a Conclusion
As earlier noted, the importance of a conclusion in an essay cannot be overlooked.
It is therefore important to clearly understand what role a conclusion plays in an essay.
Concisely, the purpose of a conclusion is to:
“Reiterate the reason why the essay you wrote is important.”
Deriving from this is purpose, it is lucid that a conclusion should not be simply an overview of your essay.
Although it is important to provide a brief summary, a good conclusion should go further to explain to the reader why they should be interested in what has been written.
Effective essay conclusions as such fulfill the expectations of the reader and at the same time leave them yearning for more.
Such conclusions should have the following effects on the reader:
1. Reflect on what they read,
2. Connect what they read with existing bodies of knowledge on the topic, and
3. Arouse their interest in exploring the subject matter/ topic further.
Rules for Writing a Conclusion
There are various rules you could observe to ensure that your conclusion for essay is top notch.
These rules include:
1. Ensure it is brief and precise. As illustrated in good conclusions for an essay, this section should be short. Normally it should be about one paragraph.
2. Include an overview. In this, the conclusion should comprise a brief summary of the paper and explain whether the essay answers the set essay instructions/ questions.
3. You should avoid obvious statements line “in summary” or “in conclusion”. Instead, you should write in way where context clues easily help the reader identify it as the conclusion of the essay.
4. You should not include new information. The conclusion should cover only what is already in the essay. You are required to restate the main points discussed and provide closure. However, you could suggest ways to improve or expand the research.
Tips for Writing a Good Conclusion
Some key tips on how to write an essay conclusion are:
1. Comment on larger and more significant issues. The essay conclusion should move from specific to general. It should be the opposite of the introduction that moves from general to specific. This entails considering how the study fills an essay gap or contributes to new understanding of the topic being explored.
2. Recommend a course of action. A good conclusion should provide recommendations on a specific course of action to help address the underlying issue/s. It is important to give the reader a direction on what should be done to address the problem being studied.
3. Warn readers about potential consequences. If the essay is examining a contemporary problem, you should ensure that readers understand the possible negative implications if the problem is not attended to.
4. Use an expert opinion or quotation to strengthen your conclusion. This is necessary in enhancing the authority on the inferences arrived at in your essay conclusion. Such opinion or quotation should be sourced from sections of the essay, preferably the literature review part.
5. Restate a relevant fact, statistic, or use visual image. You should use these to illuminate the inferences made. Facts, statistics, and visual images are very effective in helping the reader picture, relate with, and interpret the findings and inferences made.
6. Use personal reflection where possible. In disciplines such as humanities, social sciences, and health sciences that allow personal reflection, it would be appropriate to use a personal life experience narrative to illustrate your concluding point.
7. Employ a quotation, example, or anecdote in the introduction. This would require you to reframe the “catchy” part of the introductory section based on your interpretation of essay topic. You should include further insights derived from the study’s essay topic.
8. Add a “take-home” message. This is the last part of an essay conclusion and requires you to include a strong and concise statement to help the reader remember the essay topic.
9. Be firm on the essay results. Despite the study’s potential shortcomings, it is important to stamp your authority on the study conducted by using a tone that reflects confidence in essay topic and findings made. You should not cast any potential doubts by exploring other approaches that would have been better in examining the issue.
How to Write a Conclusion for an Essay
Below are the steps on how to write a conclusion for an essay.
1. Review Previous Samples
This should be the first step to take when it comes to how to write an essay conclusion.
Before you embark on writing the conclusion, it is advisable to review previous essays conclusions for insights on the best approach.
You should explore different structures and lengths for different types on essays.
In this, various parts of the essay conclusion should be compared and contrasted, for both studies in similar and different fields.
For instance, you should review how points have been reiterated.
2. Creating an Outline
Creating an outline is another key step to follow when writing an essay conclusion.
It entails coming up with a guide with items on the key parts to include in the conclusion section.
Using the outline, you should be able to identify how much focus you should give to each of the parts.
Note that there is limited space since the conclusion should be brief and concise.
The outline should therefore help you organize the conclusion in a logical manner.
3. Restating the Essay Topic
This is the first step in the actual process of writing an essay conclusion.
The essay topic should be restated at the beginning of conclusion paragraph.
This is critical in setting the direction and tone the conclusion is going to take.
The restated topic is important in reminding the reader of the topic and purpose the essay sought to realize.
Restating the essay topic also indicates to the reader that you are concluding the essay.
You should therefore be clear and precise. It should be about one short sentence.
4. Summarizing the Key Points
This step involves highlighting the main points in the essay to give the reader a recap of what the study involved and what it found.
Points to be summarized should focus mainly on the body of essay, including key arguments, supporting points, and inferences.
This should be a significant part of your essay conclusion.
These points should be rephrased to avoid repetition.
Each summarized point should be independently stated and clearly expressed to avoid confusion.
5. Providing Recommendations
This step involves suggesting potential solutions to the topic being addressed in the essay.
After restating the essay topic to remind the reader what the issue under study was, it is necessary to provide solutions.
Recommendations may include solutions and actions to take to realize them or calls for further exploration of the topic.
The reader should know the ultimate purpose of evaluating wider issues on the topic.
6. Link Introduction to the Conclusion
After providing the recommendations, it is time to wrap the essay.
This can be done by using a quotation or statistic covered in the introductory part of the essay.
The part from the introduction should linked to a take-home message.
Conclusion Examples for an Essay
Just like conclusion examples for research paper, conclusion examples for an essay should brief and to the point.
Good essay conclusion examples are as illustrated below.
Sample 1
To enhance adoption of new electronic health records, hospitals have to ensure proper planning. A team designed to facilitate implementation is critical in identifying employee needs relating to how the new technology works, generating an implementation vision, and training the staff on how to use the new technology. For adoption to be effective, the implementation process should be guided by five main qualities that include relative advantage, compatibility, simplicity, observability, and triability. The facilitator should be charged with the responsibility of ensuring that employees understand and appreciate the place of these qualities in the implementation process. Accordingly, the qualities are intertwined and the hospital should therefore select an electronics health records system that augments them all. Implementation planning should be done by a team comprising the facilitator, hospital administration, and staff members.
Sample 2
For venture capital firms, the associated financial risks are a serious concern. New companies fail more often than not and venture capitalists have come up with approaches to help mitigate against imminent risk. Effective screening of investments is one of such approaches and entails a thorough examination of entailed risk to help flag off potentially unviable businesses. As well, venture capitalists employ syndication as a way to spread likely risk and consolidate key resources. They also adopt contracting by generating different agreements with businesses that are aimed at shielding them from potential risks. Further, staging investment is employed and focuses on financing projects of a business at different stages for effective monitoring and assessment. The firms also use convertible securities as a mitigation measure, where they seek to get first payments from convertible stocks or convert them into common dividends and therefore earn dividends. Accordingly, with new businesses seeking venture capital emerging every day, venture capital firms have to determine which approaches to adopt to mitigate against financial risks. It is prudent to apply a combination of these measures if not all of them.
