Draft Your
ConclusionProvide a Summary
The summary may be the strategy most often used for
concluding. And, like the transitional phrase, may seem rather unimaginative
to your reader. Additionally, short papers may not need a summary
(and, in fact, may seem insulting to your reader). When providing
a summary for your reader, your goal is to reaffirm your thesis
and remind your reader(s) how well you’ve supported it.
Let’s look at an example of a concluding paragraph that summarizes
the paper.
With hot air ballooning opening yet another avenue of sky travel,
communication students need to become familiar with this sport as
a newsworthy event. The motivations for hot air ballooning may range
from scientific research of wind patterns through exploration of uncharted
skies to mere leisurely entertainment with fellow sky enthusiasts.
While hot air ballooning has met with more failures than successes
with the recent downfalls of two of the last three skynauts, the outlook
for ballooning is optimistic, as seen with its recent entry in the
world of the Olympic competitions.
It’s tough to judge whether the conclusion above adequately
summaries the paper without reading the paper itself. However, we
can pick up some tips by looking both at the conclusion above and
the thesis for this paper included below.
Ballooning Paper’s Thesis: “communication students need
to become familiar with this recent mid-air craze as it is certain
to capture the public's curiosity. This paper discusses the various
motivations for these types of trips, examines their successes and
failures, and identifies the future trends in hot air ballooning for
these sky-venturers who have floated their way into today's headlines.”
As in the example above, if you include a summary of your paper,
it should not be long or detailed. It should reaffirm
your thesis statement. Two tips for this strategy:
1. Keep the summary short
2. Use fresh wording.
While the conclusion may be a summary only, more often you’ll
include a brief summary in addition to another strategy.
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