UH-Victoria

Draft Your Conclusion

Explain the Implications of your Thesis or Research

You may want to explain the implications of your thesis or the findings from research in your conclusion. Often this kind of conclusion will also provide a summary but also allows the writer to explain what the thesis or findings mean in a particular situation.

 

Let’s look at a conclusion from a paper about the themes of community and oppression in revolutionary times.

Ultimately, the theme of community intertwines with the theme of oppression. In order to free a people of oppression they must be united in a community. Today, these themes, introduced to America in revolutionary times, are still important. Americans come together in communities to fight against oppressions that still plague us in America today; Americans, especially minority Americans, still search for equality in all aspects of life (from equality in education to equal opportunity in housing). And beyond fighting oppression in our own country, Americans have attempted to fight the oppression of people elsewhere in the world. We still fight to make a reality the Enlightenment idea that all human beings are born with "natural rights."

This strategy can be useful if your goal is to persuade your readers to think or act in a certain way but may also be useful in showing your readers relationships between the past and the present or future. In the example conclusion above, we can see that this writer wants to make a link between the “past” (the revolutionary themes of community and oppression) and the “present” (these themes still resonate in today’s world).