A.Seglie
FWIS 151
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Conclusions Should:
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Briefly summarize your main points without being repetitive.
Synthesize, not just summarize.
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Demonstrate the importance of your ideas.
Answer and elaborate on the “so what”
 Propel your reader to a new view of the topic.
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Avoid simply repeating your thesis.
Avoid the statements “In conclusion,” “in closing,” “in summary.”
 Avoid introducing new evidence.
(Some) Good Ways to End:
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Make broader connections: Just as the introduction narrows in, the conclusion offers an opportunity to broaden out. Show how your discussion connects to larger issues.
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Elaborate on the significance of your findings: This technique offers a chance to hit home the “so what” and sell your paper. Your discussion is important because…..
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Pose a new, yet related question: Offer a provocative question without introducing a completely new topic. What does this paper call us to question/challenge? What does it highlight and shed light on?
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Return to the themes in the introduction: This technique can provide a tidy ending by brining the reader full circle.
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Propose a course of action : Try showing where your discussion logically leads the reader. Where and how does it push us to think more critically? Point the way.
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End with a quote from the text: Include a provocative insight or quotation from the research or reading you did for your paper.
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Connect to a course theme: Use your conclusion to think about how your argument fits into course discussions, chronologies, or themes.
Conclusions to Avoid:
 “That’s My Story and I’m Sticking to It” Conclusion.
This conclusion just restates the thesis and is usually painfully short. It does not push the ideas forward. People write this kind of conclusion when they can’t think of anything else to say.
 The “Sherlock Holmes” Conclusion
. Sometimes writers will state the thesis for the very first time in the conclusion. You may think it would be more dramatic to keep the reader in the dark until the end and then “wow” him with your main idea, as in a
Sherlock Holmes mystery. The reader, however, does not expect a mystery, but an analytical discussion of your topic in an academic style, with the main argument (thesis) stated up front. Be bold, my friends.
 The “America the Beautiful”/”I Am Woman”/”We Shall Overcome” Conclusion
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This kind of conclusion usually draws on emotion to make its appeal. While this emotion

A.Seglie
FWIS 151 and even sentimentality may be very heartfelt, it is usually out of character with the rest of an analytical paper. Match the mood and tone of your conclusion to the body of your paper.
 The “Grab Bag” Conclusion
. This kind of conclusion includes extra information that the writer found or thought of but couldn’t integrate into the main paper. You may find it hard to leave out details that you discovered after hours of research and thought, but adding random facts and bits of evidence at the end of an otherwise-well-organized essay can just create confusion.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:
Thesis on Frederick Douglass and Education:
By formulating illiteracy as a parallel to intellectual and physical enslavement, Douglass conversely offers education as a system that drives personal, communal, and national conceptions of freedom. In so doing, he locates education as a central force in the abolition of slavery and expansion of civil rights.
Varying Conclusions:
In conclusion, Frederick Douglass was, as we have seen, a pioneer in American education, proving that education was a major force for social change with regard to slavery.
Douglass’s conception of literacy as freedom calls attention to the importance of education as a force of historical change. As later movements, ranging from the desegregation of schools and affirmative action politics illustrate, the overlap between race, freedom, and education has shaped U.S. history and continues to structure contemporary relations between ethnicities and socioeconomic groups. The correlation between freedom and literacy in Douglass’s
Narrative reminds us to question not simply if today’s education system offers freedom, but what types of freedom and to whom.
In addition to being an educational pioneer, Frederick Douglass provides an interesting case study for masculinity in the American South. He also offers historians an interesting glimpse into slave resistance when he confronts Covey, the overseer. His relationships with female relatives reveal the importance of family in the slave community.
Resource: http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/conclusions/