Rules for writers, Tenth edition - Diana Hacker, Nancy Sommers 2021

Draft a conclusion
Exploring, planning, and drafting
A process for writing

A conclusion reminds readers of the essay’s main idea without repeating it. By the end of the essay, readers should already understand your position, so the concluding paragraph is often relatively short. An effective conclusion rounds out an essay by giving readers a sense of completion or by issuing a call to action.

Always end your essay on a strong, positive note. You don’t need to use phrases such as In conclusion or In summary because your readers will understand that your essay is concluding. The conclusion is your chance to have the last word on the subject and remind readers why your essay was worth reading.

To make your conclusion memorable and give a sense of completion, you might bring readers full circle by linking your last paragraph to your first one, returning to the thesis or including a detail from the introduction. To conclude his argument essay about the shift from print to online news, student writer Sam Jacobs returns to the hook from his introduction, the phrase fit to print, and echoes his thesis to show the broader importance of his argument.

Here are the introduction and conclusion from Jacobs’s essay.

INTRODUCTION

“All the news that’s fit to print,” the motto of The New York Times since 1896, plays with the word fit, asserting that a news story must be newsworthy and must not exceed the limits of the printed page. The increase in online news consumption, however, challenges both meanings of the word fit, allowing producers and consumers alike to rethink who decides which topics are worth covering and how extensive that coverage should be. Any cultural shift usually means that something is lost, but in this case there are clear gains. The shift from print to online news provides unprecedented opportunities for readers to become more engaged with the news, to hold journalists accountable, and to participate as producers, not simply as consumers.

CONCLUSION

The Internet has enabled consumers to participate in a new way in reading, questioning, interpreting, and reporting the news. Decisions about appropriate content and coverage are no longer exclusively in the hands of news editors. Ordinary citizens now have a meaningful voice in the conversation—a hand in deciding what’s “fit to print.” Some skeptics worry about the apparent free-for-all and loss of tradition. But the expanding definition of news provides opportunities for consumers to be more engaged with events in their communities, their nations, and the world.

TIP: For more examples of effective conclusions, see the model essays in 5d, 7h, 58b, and 63b.

STRATEGIES FOR DRAFTING A CONCLUSION

In addition to echoing your main idea, a conclusion might do any of the following:

✵ Briefly summarize your essay’s key points

✵ Return to the hook used in the introduction

✵ Propose a course of action

✵ Offer a recommendation

✵ Suggest the topic’s wider significance or implications

✵ Redefine a key term or concept

✵ Pose a question for future study