7 Steps to Better Writing - Charles Maxwell 2020

Draft the summary and conclusions last
Step 5 – Draft

Most documents, even emails, benefit from a short summary placed at the beginning of a document and a clear restatement of key points at the end as a concluding section. Write these segments after you have written everything else. If ideas come to you for the summary and conclusion while working on the body of the document, build a list of these thoughts and then later use the list to compose the summary and conclusions.

You also might need to add a list of recommendations or action items to your document. Both the summary and the conclusion sections typically state the recommendations, often in an abbreviated form. The action items can be part of the recommendation or a separate following section.

Consider using numbered lists if you have more than a few conclusions, recommendations, or action items. Numbering them makes them more memorable and provides readers an easy way to reference specific items.