Conclusion Paragraphs

The role of a conclusion is to re-emphasize what you've proven, to connect your ideas, and to highlight the significance of your argument. If an introduction paragraph funnels your readers from the world into your essay, your conclusion is a reverse funnel, releasing your readers back out into the world with the new understanding they gained from your essay.

A conclusion typically begins with a re-statement of your thesis in different words: remind your readers what you've proven. Next, summarize how your essay proved the thesis by again reviewing your main ideas in order. It should be clear how these ideas built on each other to support the thesis. Finally, leave readers with a takeaway message. This is often thematic, offering real-world relevance to your readers.

Basic Conclusion Structure

Video Overview

Conclusion Paragraph Structure

Restated Thesis

The purpose of restating your thesis is to remind readers what you've been proving throughout the essay. It should also help transition from your final body paragraph into your conclusion paragraph, linking your final main idea back to the central argument of the essay.

Main Ideas

This section also mirrors the introduction. When stating the main ideas in the conclusion, though, you're reminding your readers of what you've already proven, so you can focus more on concepts and less on plot. You will probably also connect the ideas to each other more directly.

Takeaway Message

After restating the main ideas, you will transition into your final message about the significance of your essay. This is often thematic; connect the phenomenon discussed in your essay to the real world. It often mirrors the background information in your introduction paragraph, but it connects more directly to the content of your essay.

Example

This conclusion paragraph and the introduction paragraph on the introduction paragraphs page come from the same essay. Notice how they mirror each other as a funnel and reverse funnel.

[Restated Thesis] Rosaura's extreme disappointment at the end of the story can be traced to how thoroughly she misinterprets her role at the party. [Main Ideas] [1] At the beginning of the story, Rosaura sets her expectations for the party far too high. [2] She then spends most of the story believing she is an honored guest while in reality she is helping to serve the other children. [3] When she gets offered money instead of a party favor at the end of the story, Rosaura is abruptly and painfully reminded of the realities of social class. [Takeaway Message] Even though most of the other children accept Rosaura, Señora Ines is incapable of seeing beyond her social status. Unfortunately, many people judge others based on their background or perceived social status. This type of bias is harmful because it limits people’s opportunities and makes it even more difficult to raise one’s social status.

Advanced Options

Condensed Conclusion

Similarly, if you connected your main ideas to each other well throughout the body of your essay, you may not need to repeat your main ideas in your conclusion. You can start with your restated thesis, transition from the literature to theme, and then discuss your takeaway message (theme). Your structure would be thesis, transition, takeaway message.

Example

[Restated Thesis] Rosaura's extreme disappointment at the end of the story can be traced to how thoroughly she misinterprets her role at the party. [Transition] Even though most of the other children accept Rosaura, Señora Ines is incapable of seeing beyond her social status. [Takeaway Message] Unfortunately, indulging in fantasies about being rich does not change the real affect of social class on individuals' experiences. Many people judge others based on their background or perceived social status, limiting their opportunities and crushing their dreams. In order to change this situation, people must identify and eliminate this bias in others and in themselves.

Multi-Paragraph Conclusion

In an essay, the conclusion is generally everything that comes after you've finished presenting and analyzing evidence. This is where you connect your ideas and explain why they matter, and sometimes it might take you more than one paragraph to do this. In the example below, I ended up writing so much about the story itself that I didn't have space to add a meaningful thematic connection to my conclusion paragraph. Luckily, my problem had an easy solution: I just added a second conclusion paragraph that focused on theme.

Example

[Restated Thesis] It is undeniably Señora Ines who has “stolen” the party from Rosaura in its final moments; her attempt to pay Rosaura has an obvious negative impact. And yet, Señora Ines’s intentions are benevolent. [Synthesis of Main Ideas] She holds out the money with a smile, a compliment, and sincere thanks. Furthermore, this money is a tip she offers out of kindness; there was obviously no prearranged agreement that Rosaura would get paid. Señora Ines’s good intentions have such a negative impact because of her assumptions about social class—assumptions that are likely subconscious. Señora Ines probably never considered that Rosaura might believe she was a guest at the party: because Rosaura’s mother is her maid, Señora Ines assumes Rosaura will take on the same role. Ironically, if Señora Ines hadn’t been so kind to Rosaura—couching her requests in compliments and including her in activities with the other children—the impact of her actions wouldn’t have been so hurtful. If Señora Ines had handed her a maid’s outfit and a list of tasks as soon as she’d arrived, at least Rosaura would have known her role right away. By giving Rosaura an amazing experience and then wrenching it away, Señora Ines unintentionally crushes Rosaura.
[Significance / Thematic Connection] It is often assumptions, ignorance, or unexamined bias that create the gap between intentions and impact. Señora Ines’s assumptions about social class hurt Rosaura, but this doesn’t make her a bad person. The test of her character is what happens after the moment when the story ends, with Señora Ines and Rosaura both frozen in place, the money between them. If Señora Ines clings to her belief in the goodness of her intentions, she will continue to hold out the money, consider Rosaura ungrateful if she doesn’t take it, and convince herself that the misunderstanding was Rosaura’s fault. However, she has another option. She can recognize that her well-meaning actions hurt Rosaura and apologize for their impact. She can identify the assumptions she made that caused the harm, and she can educate herself so she won’t make the same mistake again. This second course of action requires setting aside one’s image of oneself as a good person in order to become a better one. This is difficult but necessary; once the negative impact of our assumptions has been exposed, we can no longer continue the same behavior and still claim good intentions. And so Señora Ines has a difficult choice to make.

Final-Body-Paragraph Conclusion

It's also possible to make your final body paragraph serve as your conclusion. This isn't usually ideal because you won't have enough space to fully develop the significance of your argument. However, it can be a helpful strategy in timed writing situations.

This strategy only works when your paragraphs build on each other directly and your analysis throughout the essay connects ideas in different paragraphs. Basically, if you have already done a lot of the work of connecting ideas throughout, you may not need a separate conclusion paragraph. This is similar to why you don't need to intentionally add a conclusion sentence at the end of a well-written paragraph; the last step of your analysis is your conclusion.

Your last body paragraph can more easily serve as a conclusion if it is about the ending of a story or poem and that ending encapsulates the meaning of the work as a whole. In this case, you end up analyzing the meaning of the work as a whole and making connections back to earlier paragraphs within that last body paragraph.

The example below is the last body paragraph of an essay arguing that Rosaura's disappointment stems from her misunderstanding, not from actually being treated as a maid. It can double as a conclusion because (1) the paragraph connects ideas from multiple paragraphs (see first bolded section); (2) it's about the ending of the story, which perfectly demonstrates my thesis; and (3) My analysis builds logically to the thesis, which is stated as the last sentence of this paragraph.

Example

After being made to feel special throughout the party, Rosaura is devastated when Señora Ines tries to pay her. When Señora Ines approaches Rosaura and her mother for the final time, she bolsters her confidence even further: “[she] said something that made Rosaura proud: ‘What a marvelous daughter you have, Herminia’” (4). At this point, Rosaura’s confidence is high. She thinks she has proven to her mother that she was right about the party: she fit in with the other guests, had a great time, and is about to leave with wonderful memories. Señora Ines has been a big part of this, singling her out for compliments and special privileges at every opportunity. When Rosaura realizes that this special treatment stemmed from Señora Ines’s view of her as a maid, she is crushed. When the money is revealed, “Rosaura felt her arms stiffen, stick close to her body, and then she noticed her mother’s hand on her shoulder. Instinctively she pressed herself against her mother’s body” (4). A moment ago, Rosaura was gleefully telling her mother about the party, and now she is relying on her for physical support as she realizes that her mother was right all along. Her confidence and hope have vanished, and her disappointment is deepened by its contrast with the pure joy she feels throughout the party itself. It is the false pretense of being a guest—not simply being treated as a maid—that causes Rosaura the most harm.

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