Columbia High School

Often conclusions go something like this: "So as you can see there are many kinds of treatments for depression. There is therapy. There is medication. And there is blah blah blah blah blah….The End." Conclusions are not supposed to be general, boring sentences. Just like the introduction, well-written conclusions usually begin with, or at least contain DETAILS. As a matter of fact, the best way to incorporate details in the conclusion is to go back to the introduction. If you wrote an anecdote about a young criminal, refer to that story again here. Maybe finish the story. Did he get help? Did he go to jail? If you began a paper on pollution with a description of a particularly polluted lake, again refer to that lake. Did the lake get cleaned up? Is it still bad? It makes little difference what details began your paper. You can always come back to them in the conclusion.

Of course, you also have to re-state or punctuate your main point. It is generally unnecessary to just list the main points of each section again. Try to say it in an original way rather than just repeating your thesis word for word.

Have the last sentence be food for thought for the reader. Make it interesting, even provocative if possible. Perhaps even a question might work.

Here is an example of a conclusion from a student paper on teenage pregnancy. Notice that the conclusion is not just general statements, but includes specifics, all NEW details, not restated ones from earlier in the paper. Even quotes are included.

As the potential solutions are discussed to this ageless problem, it becomes more and more evident that we, as a country, have to be more vigorous in reducing the number of teenage girls who become pregnant each year. Unfortunately, girls are not receiving the necessary support to help avoid so many unwanted pregnancies. Only on third of all insurance companies are currently covering the "pill" ("Profit and the Pill" 23), and yet most cover a popular male fertility drug - Viagra. "This simple fact perpetuates the idea that men's sexual needs come before women's reproductive freedoms," claims researcher Elena Karp (236). We need to move our society to more female-friendly ideals that will in the future prevent the preventable. Three quarters of all teen pregnancies are unwanted; however, if we made girls more aware of how to prevent pregnancy we would divide the teenage pregnancy rate by half. Better education would also make those teens who become mothers better mothers. Teen motherhood is like a disease that the U.S. must fight with education and knowledge. The consequences of teen pregnancy are far too important to ignore.