by Wenbin Nah

Created on: September 28, 2010   Last Updated: September 29, 2010

You have just written a great thesis and a solid body. Why not end with a strong conclusion?

You've done all this great writing, so what do you want your reader to do as a result of this writing? What do you want your reader to do or to think of this great writing?

Common advice would be to restate your thesis in clear language. Language should be clear because you have been working on proving your thesis for a couple of pages at least. Other people might want you to do more than simply restate your thesis. Others may even want your conclusion to answer this very simple question. “So What?”

There are 3 major steps involved in writing a good essay conclusion.

Step 1: Writing a summary (3-4 sentences)

-          Firstly, restate your thesis and your main points

Some of you may have been told in high school that all you have to do in a conclusion is to restate your thesis and your main points. In college level, that is part of a conclusion but really not everything.

My advice to you when you are writing a summary is to go back and look at your thesis, look at your topic sentences and ask yourself, how can I restate these for my conclusion? So you really should have at least 3 or 4 sentences to include in your summary when you get there in your conclusion.

-          Secondly, don't reuse exact words

Don't reuse the exact words that you have used in your thesis or your topic sentences. Try to use synonyms. If necessary, use a thesaurus and use other words that mean exactly or almost exactly the same as the word that you were trying to use, but don't use the exact same word in your summary that you have used elsewhere.

Remember, a summary means main points. You are rewriting the main points of your essay, and the best place to locate these main points is in your thesis and your topic sentences.

Step 2: What is the significance? (1-2 sentences)

So once you've written your summary, you want to move on to talking about what is the significance of your topic. You really need to spend time answering this question. Think about these questions right here.

- so what?

- why does this matter?

- who cares?

You should also be thinking about audience in your essay. What person or people would be most interested about what you have to write about? And again, what do you see as your purpose in writing your essay? Who outside the classroom might be most interested in what

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