How to write a STRONG conclusion paragraph for your college papers

oh hey there welcome to today's video my name is chelsea sieber this is a smart student channel i'm going to cut right to the chase today i'm going to teach you how to write an effective conclusion for a college level academic paper dare i say it every single time by the way this is a two-part series where in the first one i taught you guys how to write an effective introduction so i do recommend watching that one first if you haven't already because these are two topics that are best learned together but with no further ado let's get started [Applause] right game time so we all know that the conclusion is the end of your paper it's the last thing you write to finish up your paper so taking into consideration the introduction as well one might say that the introduction and the conclusion together act as the end caps to your entire paper you see your introduction guides the reader into your paper while the conclusion gracefully guides them out this is why the purpose of a conclusion is often described as providing closure to the reader so with that understanding a question i always like to ask students or at least i like to get their mind thinking in this direction is well who is the reader who is the audience that you're writing for you see if you're a student writing student papers this is good news because your audience is small tiny actually it's typically one person your professor and you see by understanding that your professor is your audience generally the one and only person that's going to read your paper you can use this knowledge to your advantage in structuring your conclusions now how do you do that i'm glad you asked what you want to do is you want to ask yourself well what is the purpose of my professor reading my paper what are they looking for the answer is simple and it's often overlooked your professor is reading your paper to see how well you demonstrated your knowledge on the topic in your writing prompt in other words they're looking to see that you've effectively answered the writing instructions you were given so now let's revisit the part where i said your conclusion is the end cap to your paper if that's the case then one might say that it's the perfect place to demonstrate your knowledge on your given topic one last time this is more good news for you because you already have all of the material you need to write your conclusion because you're wrapping up information that you've already written about you see your conclusion is never the place to introduce new ideas or theories it's the place where you finalize those ideas and theories but now let's move on to the building blocks that you can actually use to structure your conclusions by the way your conclusions are not limited to what i'm about to share with you this is simply the best structure i recommend for students who struggle with writing conclusions and so no matter what paper you're writing whether it's long and complicated or short and sweet these are the three components i recommend including a restatement of your thesis statement a summary road map of your main findings in your paper and a strong concluding statement ak a final statement let's go ahead and break these down one at a time starting with the restatement of your thesis statement now you might be wondering why would i restate my thesis statement when i already said it at the beginning of my paper it's simple it brings your professor's mind back to the overall purpose of your paper so think of it like this your thesis statement is effective in your introduction because it guides your professor into your paper therefore it's a logical choice to start your conclusion as to leading them out now to be clear you're not copying and pasting that exact thesis statement verbatim as the first sentence in your conclusion you're going to restate it saying new language paraphrase it in other words and by the way if you didn't write out a formal thesis statement in your introduction for this paper that's okay for your conclusion what you'll do is ask yourself what was the purpose of my writing and what did i find out about it whatever the answer is to that that's what you're going to restate in its place for the conclusion now the last note i want to make about why restating your thesis statement is an effective choice is because oftentimes that first sentence to start your conclusion is the hardest one just like the first sentence in starting your introduction there's a lot of pressure around it well it happens to a lot of students in the same way for starting your conclusions so if you always start with a restatement of your thesis statement that takes away the pressure and anxiety which is a huge bonus right there let's go ahead and move on to the summary of your main points and like i already said i like to think of these in terms of a road map now let me explain so when you receive a writing assignment you're given various objectives that you need to fulfill so for your conclusion i find it's a great strategy to discuss what you found out about each objective in the order you discuss them so basically you start with a restatement of your thesis statement and then you're layering out the proof of why that thesis statement is relevant in that roadmap formation something else to be crystal clear on is that for this portion of your conclusion you're not restating the objectives from your assignment it's important that you talk about what you learned about those objectives and by the way the roadmap in your conclusion is generally the largest portion of your conclusion and so your conclusion length really does depend on the length and complexity of your paper but a rule of thumb is that your conclusion should be relatively similar in length to your introduction you want equally sized end caps otherwise something is out of balance or so they say or so i say but anyways let's move on to the final component in your conclusion which is a strong final statement don't let the word strong intimidate you because i'm about to simplify this for you as always so you know how your thesis statement is generally where you you talk about your topic but more importantly what you learned about that topic in other words your main claim for your entire paper and then through your objectives is where you usually develop support and explain that main claim well for your strong concluding statement this is a great place to now give your overall impression of that claim so now that you've written your entire paper you have your thesis statement you work through all the objectives what is your viewpoint now on that claim so in other words did you discover something what did you find did you take a stance what was that stance did you answer a question what was your answer did you solve a problem what was your solution do you need to do more research what are your suggestions or did you prove or disprove your thesis statement how so stating your final impression of your research as your concluding statement is so effective because it ties a nice neat tidy bow on your entire paper so in conclusion the best way to write an effective conclusion for an academic paper is threefold restate your thesis statement provide a roadmap summary of the findings about your main objectives and then end with a strong concluding statement that gives your final impression of your entire paper by the way if academic writing is something that you struggle with i have a free live master class coming up i'll link that down in the description below because there's a few dates in time so you need to pick which one works best for you and lastly don't forget to watch the introduction video if you haven't already because they go hand in hand but as always thank you so much for supporting this video by watching it i always love your guys company and yeah basically i'll see you on the next video [Music] you

Channel: Smart Student

Views: 41,517

Keywords: how to write a conclusion, conclusion paragraph, essay writing, academic writing, college essay conclusion, how to write a conclusion paragraph, how to write a conclusion for an essay, how to write a conclusion for a research paper, how to end an essay, college essay topics, conclusion for argumentative essay, essay conclusion, how to write a conclusion paragraph for an essay, how to write a conclusion for an argumentative essay, how to write a conclusion for an informative essay

Id: 00nIzi0A0DY

Length: 8min 35sec (515 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 07 2021