A poorly written and clumsy conclusion will spoil the opinion of even the best-quality text, which means that the grade for it will be lower than expected. Today we're going to look at ways to end an essay so that it stays on top.
Why it's important to finish your essay correctly
There are several reasons for this. As a reminder, an essay is a short written work in which the author expresses his or her own opinion on a topic. It can be emotional, intriguing, written in non-official language - in short, the more creativity you put into it, the better. So why is it so important to understand how to finish an essay correctly?
First, if the whole text was interesting and fascinating, just one bad paragraph at once will spoil the whole impression. Immediately there will be a feeling that the student slacked off and didn't finish it, hurried to finish it as soon as possible, or even rewrote the middle part from another author.
Second, everything needs the right ending: essays, books, films, and symphonies. Even in a conversation, the ending is more important than the middle. It is better remembered than anything else. So the beginning and the end are the most important parts of any work.
And finally, thirdly, very often teachers do not want to read two dozen texts in their entirety and limit themselves to the first and last paragraphs. That way they understand what the student wrote about and what conclusions they came to. It makes sense that if you want a good grade, these parts will have to be worked on.
The importance of a proper ending now leaves no doubt. We’ll talk about most important essay ending tips. With them, you could even start writing essays for money.
So what are some tricks that will allow you to write a proper and appropriate conclusion?
Types of conclusions for essays
It will be much easier for you to do this work if you know what types of essay endings there are in general. That way, you'll decide what works best for you in terms of topic or style. Here are some types compiled by the best essay editing service:
Quote
Of course, bringing in a whole paragraph is not the prettiest solution. But using it as the last sentence or phrase is quite appropriate. In addition, an exact quotation, carefully inserted in the text, does not require any explanation or continuation. A rather elegant move would also be to insert the words of the same author in the epigraph or introduction.
Rhetorical question
Addressing the reader is a great move. It will make you think about the topic of the essay, and it will free you from having to give any specific facts at the end of the text. Think about what kind of question you can ask, and how to approach it smoothly. The right words can be found on almost any topic.
Link to the introduction.
This is easy enough to do if a question has been written in the introduction. In that case, it's time to answer it in the conclusion. Or you can use the same phrase (or quote) in the first and last paragraphs: only in the beginning it should intrigue and set the tone for the whole essay, and in the end, it should serve as a conclusion. But in this case, you have to try to color them differently emotionally at the expense of the correct development of thought.
Incitement to action
Such an ending will not suit all topics. And not all readers may not perceive it well. But, if you know that your teacher supports an active life position, it will be an excellent conclusion of any essay. In it, you need to confidently address the reader and suggest that he or she change something: "start with yourself," try something new, motivate him or her to make some changes. To make it look convincing, the whole essay must be written emotionally and believably. The reader should believe you and be convinced of your rightness.
Summarizing
The easiest, yet the win-win option is how to end your essay. Simply summarize all the conclusions you came to during writing the essay. You don't need to retell everything you've said or start new reflections. Such a way will help you finish the essay, but it is unlikely to leave any outstanding impressions on the reader.
Hints and possible mistakes while writing a conclusion
There are quite a few types of essay endings. But you need not only choose the right type but also write it correctly. And after all, there are a lot of opportunities to make a mistake:
- You can overdo the volume, and then instead of a conclusion, you get another page of text. For an essay, which should be only 500-600 words, this is completely inappropriate.
- Trying to add an unusual conclusion can lead to a different style of a text. Agree, a confident call to action will look strange if the entire essay before it was dry and unemotional.
- In trying to summarize, it is easy to draw completely different conclusions and ask new questions, which will interfere with the understanding of the text.
To avoid this, stick to simple principles:
- The conclusion should flow from the main text.
- The last paragraphs should have a meaningful conclusion to the essay. The text should not end early, and it is rarely possible to beat an open ending beautifully.
- The conclusion should be as short as possible. This is not the section where it is worth going into thought.
- If a good phrase comes to your mind while writing the main part of the essay, write it down and put it aside for the future.
- The conclusion should explain to the reader why he or she read the entire essay and what he or she should have gotten out of it.
What about the formatting?
Since the essay is a small work, it does not have separate sections with headings. Neither the introduction nor the conclusion needs to be separated from the main text. Just move to a new paragraph and start summarizing.
At the same time, the concluding part should not occupy more than 10% of the entire volume. If you have written a two-page essay, the ending should take up less than a quarter of the last one.
As a quality check, you can read only the introduction and conclusion (as the teacher is likely to do). If something in them confuses you, then try to work on the style of the text or the wording of the conclusions. Well, if they are written in a unified style, do not require a thorough study of the entire essay, and do not leave any questions after reading - congratulations, you have done a great job!