Writing Conclusions
Depending on your level of writing, the conclusion can operate in two separate ways: (1) as a reminder or summary of your topic and what you want your audience to gain from reading your paper or (2) as a further push of your argument into discussing the larger implications/significance of your topic. Remember, you don't want to add new information in your conclusion; this includes quotes. Quotations require analysis and explanation and therefore, typically, have no place in the conclusion.
One way to think about constructing your conclusion is to view it as the reverse of your introduction:
Begin by rephrasing your thesis statement to remind your reader of your topic/argument.
Summarize the points you made in your paper and show how they support your argument (i.e., tie all the pieces of your paper together).
Explain the significance of your topic; this is the "So What?" of your argument. Why is the topic important?
This is the rallying cry of your paper. If you are trying to institute any type of change – the redefinition of a text's traditional interpretation, petitioning of one side of a debate over another, etc. – this is the last chance for you to attempt to change the reader's mind.
Example
Podcast's Conclusion
(Again, I am combining everything to give a better impression on what a traditional conclusion would look like.):
“The invincibility of zombies seems to be that they can take on any desired meaning. They can shape-shift into almost anything we want them to.” Kelley Baker states, “So it can be about consumerism with this all-consuming monster. It can be about bio-terrorism and corporations who are negligent. It can be about epidemics and how they can ravage us in some sort of way.” Elizabeth McAlister expands on Baker’s point by explaining, “But the zombie also is, you know, the hordes of brown people at the border. The zombie is a cipher. The zombie, by definition, has no consciousness. The zombie is this empty category into which you can load meaning.” “[McAlister] says there's one consistent theme that keeps zombies relevant. It's always there, looming in the background or sometimes right up in your face and speaks to one of our most fundamental fears”: “Which is that we are all going to die and that everyone who's ever lived dies. So the zombie figure forces the living to face the condition of death, and - which is what religion is there to help humanity do, but the United States is becoming more and more secular. This is a kind of a secular way to contend with, think about, imagine, dress up like and confront the human condition of dying.” “Something that may be on our minds more than usual these days": “Certainly now more than ever, humans are facing the realities of climate change and of the degradation of the ecosystem, and the idea of apocalypse is on the minds of humanity” (McAlister).
“At the same time, because zombies are now everywhere, they've kind of casually integrated themselves into our everyday existence. People have zombie-themed weddings, go on zombie-themed cruises. The CDC has a gag zombie preparedness page on its Web site. And then, of course, there are the people who are just living their best zombie lives. […] Everyone that I interviewed for this story is clearly fascinated with zombies, but to be honest, they're also a little fatigued by the oversaturation and disheartened by a lack of substance - something Kelly [Baker] says zombies have gradually been losing post-Romero”: “George Romero has radical political commentary. It's very much about Americans. It's very much about the racial state in America. It's about the consumerist state. It's about thinking about what we're doing, the systems that we're inhabiting, how they're oppressive. When zombies are everywhere, maybe they've lost some of their radical power. Where they might have been subversive, now they're just mainstream. I mean, if Disney can have a movie about zombies in which a zombie and a cheerleader who is human fall in love...I really feel like we've reached a point where the radical commentary is gone." [...] "[Sylvain] worries that Haiti and the original meaning of the zombie is getting lost in all of this. The American zombie, that brain-eating ghoul, has been exported all over the world. But he wonders how many people know that this horror figure is rooted in his country's history": "Once we've had this globalized figure of the zombie, then the question becomes, who owns it? Does it really belong to Haiti? No. The zombie, again, is a wonderful trope, but we must not forget where it came from, its essence. To lose the genesis of the zombie within trans-Atlantic slavery, that would be a problem."
Breakdown:
The conclusion here is broadening back out a little. The structuring of the metaphorical nature of the zombie in the first paragraph is reframed to discuss the contemporary hollowing out of the signifying property of zombie mythology present in the second paragraph.
Paragraph 1: The re-establishing of zombie as a signifier/metaphor of complex ideas (consumerism, corporate neglect, racism, etc.).
Paragraph 2: Oversaturation and lack of representative substance further removes the zombie from its origin in oppression and slavery thus losing its larger importance and historical significance.
Problems:
Just like with all the other examples, this conclusion is far too conversational to use in a traditional essay; it also contains quotations throughout, which is to be avoided when writing an academic paper. The interview format also causes an over-reliance on the words of the experts. When you are writing your own conclusion, it should be all you. You don’t want someone else taking up space in the summation of your essay.
Additional Resources
Ending the Essay: Conclusions
Conclusions
