IR 2004

 

WRITING A CONCLUSION

 

The following guidelines are based on two URL sources:

http://shs.westport.k12.ct.us/bmswl/Documents/researchpaper_writing.doc.

 

http://www.iupui.edu/~writectr/PDF%20Handouts/Concluding%20Paragraphs%20Mar%2003.pdf

 

A conclusion signals to your reader that the presentation of information is finished.  It provides a sense of closure.  You want to leave the reader with a summary of the main points and a sense of why they are important. The conclusion for a research paper should be one paragraph. It should restate of the thesis using new word choices.  You may “repeat key words and phrases of the opening quotation, the thesis and the topics” (Cavanaugh 1).  Ms. Lew likes to say the conclusion takes the paper and says, “So what?”  The trick is to be able to tell why your discussion matters without introducing new ideas. (Stay focused.)

Do: (Strategies from the IUPUI University Writing Center):

• Refer to the introduction and tie the ideas together.

• Resolve the problem you stated in the introduction, and/or speculate about what       

   your conclusion implies for the future.

• If appropriate, mention problems or questions about the topic which still remain

   unresolved. Help your reader understand the implications of these unresolved  

   issues.

 

Do Not:

·         Introduce a new idea (that could distract readers from your focus and may diminish the importance of your main ideas)

·         Apologize for any shortcomings in your paper

·         Make predictions that are not part of the thesis

·         Moralize to the reader in a non-academic tone

·         Don’t explain to the reader what your essay is about. E.g. “In this essay, I explained…”

 

A very simple model for a conclusion can be found in the Kathy Zipperer Mid-Nineteenth century Irish v. Africans paper which can be found at http://dekalb.dc.peachnet.edu/~yliu/classes/hist/slavery.html

 

Here is her introduction:

African-American abolitionist Frederick Douglass in 1845 wrote "‘of all places to witness human misery, ignorance, degradation, filth and wretchedness, an Irish hut is preeminent … the people [of Ireland] are in the same degradation as the American slaves.’"¹ Indeed, as a class of people, the Irish immigrants who came to America were as destitute, wretched, and ridiculed as slaves. However, most of the Irish were not slaves. When comparing the two groups, the greatest difference is that the Irish immigrant had liberty and the African slave did not.

Here is her conclusion:

True, some Irish did starve; like most poor, they constantly struggled to provide food and shelter for their families. However, the choice to live or die was their own. While poor people everywhere in the world have been miserable and continue to be destitute beyond imagination, there can be no comparison between slave and free. As an emancipated slave stated, "Dese has been better times to me. I think it’s better to work for yourself and have what you make dan to work for somebody else and don’t get nothin’ out of it." ²⁰