"That's All, Folks"
A conclusion paragraph is no big deal

A conclusion paragraph is usually more subtle than just saying, "The End," but its whole purpose is to let readers know the essay is over.

Writers should not give the impression they were interrupted and forgot to write an ending. They certainly shouldn't make the readers wonder, "Did I lose the the last page of the manuscript?"

The only thing writers must do in the final paragraph is give readers a sense that the essay is finished. How they choose to do that is entirely up to them.

Conclusion is not a thesis

A significant number of my students have had serious problems understanding what they were supposed to do in the final paragraph of their essays. The problem turned out to be terminology.

When English teachers used the word conclusion, students thought they were referring to a deduction that the writer reached after considering all the relevant evidence.

That impression led students to the false idea that the proper way to write an essay was to write an introduction and body paragraphs in hopes of discovering an idea for the essay by the time they had written four or five paragraphs.

What students were doing, in effect, was writing an essay to discover their thesis statement.

When their essays turned out badly, they blamed their English teacher. After all, she was the one who insisted they write a conclusion paragraph.

Prevent such misunderstandings.

Protect your reputation.

Refer to the last paragraph of a paper as its ending paragraph unless you are talking about one of the rare situations where a paper ends by drawing deductions from the evidence presented in the body.

That terminology will make it far easier for students to learn that they must build their thesis before they write even one paragraph.

Make a quick end

The conclusion paragraph usually begins by echoing the thesis statement that ends the introduction. The writer then adds just enough more to make readers feel the essay is finished.

No matter how writers choose to end their essays, they should end them swiftly. In a 500-word essay, the final paragraph is perhaps 25-50 words—a couple of sentences will do it.

Don't repeat unnecessarily

Writers rarely need to restate the thesis in a standard five paragraph essay. If a writer does a halfway decent job, most readers can remember the thesis for as many minutes as it takes them to read the introduction and three body paragraphs.

(Some really bright teachers can remember a thesis for as long as it takes to read a five-page paper. Wow!)

Similarly, writers rarely need to reiterate their main points in their closing paragraphs. Of course, evidence should be restricted to the body paragraphs so it never, ever appears in a closing paragraph.

Teaching tips

Your time is too valuable to spend much of it teaching students how to write a conclusion. Even dummies can write two sentences that give a sense of ending to an essay; that’s all anyone must do.

I gave up trying to teach beginning writing students how to write a conclusion paragraph years ago. I do, however, talk about ways of writing introductions and conclusions. (Talking is not the same thing as teaching.) If I have a batch of creative students, we sometimes play with creating introductions and conclusions for fun.

The only real teaching I do about endings for essays I do when I teach reading comprehension. Then I draw attention to how various writers end their work.

I don't mean looking just at how short story writers and novelists end their pieces. I mean examining things like the endings of units in the students' language arts text. That's a no-hassle way for you to deal with conclusion paragraph writing, too.

Examining texts will help the brighter, more verbal students see how to write a better closing paragraph. At the same time, it will help the dummies get the point of the reading. Everybody wins.