CONCLUSIONS

A conclusion is the last paragraph in your research paper, or the last part in any other type of
presentation.

Introductions and conclusions can be difficult to write, but theyre worth investing time in. They
can have a significant influence on a readers experience of your paper.

Just as your introduction acts as a bridge that transports your readers from their own lives into the
place of your analysis, your conclusion can provide a bridge to help your readers make the
transition back to their daily lives. Such a conclusion will help them see why all your analysis and
information should matter to them after they put the paper down.

Your conclusion is your chance to have the last word on the subject. The conclusion allows you to
have the final say on the issues you have raised in your paper, to synthesize your thoughts, to
demonstrate the importance of your ideas, and to propel your reader to a new view of the subject. It
is also your opportunity to make a good final impression and to end on a positive note.

Your conclusion can go beyond the confines of the assignment. The conclusion pushes beyond the
boundaries of the prompt and allows you to consider broader issues, make new connections, and
elaborate on the significance of your findings.

Your conclusion should make your readers glad they read your paper. Your conclusion gives your
reader something to take away that will help them see things differently or appreciate your topic in
personally relevant ways. It can suggest broader implications that will not only interest your reader,
but also enrich your readers life in some way. It is your gift to the reader.

Purpose of Conclusions

In academic writing, a well-crafted conclusion can provide the final word on the value of your
analysis, research, or paper. Complete your conclusions with conviction!

Conclusions show readers the value of your completely developed argument or thoroughly
answered question. Consider the conclusion from the reader's perspective. At the end of a paper, a
reader wants to know how to benefit from the work you accomplished in your paper. Here are ways
to think about the purpose of a conclusion:

To connect the paper's findings to a larger context, such as the wider conversation about an
issue as it is presented in a course or in other published writing.
To suggest the implications of your findings or the importance of the topic.
To ask questions or suggest ideas for further research. To revisit your main idea or research
question with new insight.

Strategies in making Conclusions

Effective conclusions take the paper beyond summary and demonstrate a further appreciation of the
paper's argument and its significance: why it works, why it is meaningful, and why it is valuable. To
get started, you might ask yourself these questions:

How do the ideas in your paper connect to what you have discussed in class, or to what
scholars have written in their treatment of your topic? What new ideas have you added to the
 conversation?
What ideas do you critique?
What are the limitations of your data, methods, or results?
What are the consequences of the strongest idea that comes out of your paper?
How can you return to the question or situation you describe in your introduction?

Or you can try One or more of the following strategies may help you write an effective conclusion.

Play the So What Game. If youre stuck and feel like your conclusion isnt saying
anything new or interesting, ask a friend to read it with you. Whenever you make a
statement from your conclusion, ask the friend to say, So what? or Why should anybody
care? Then ponder that question and answer it. Heres how it might go:You: Basically, Im
just saying that education was important to Douglass.Friend: So what?You: Well, it was
important because it was a key to him feeling like a free and equal citizen.Friend: Why
should anybody care?You: Thats important because plantation owners tried to keep slaves
from being educated so that they could maintain control. When Douglass obtained an
education, he undermined that control personally.You can also use this strategy on your own,
asking yourself So What? as you develop your ideas or your draft.

Return to the theme or themes in the introduction. This strategy brings the reader full circle.
For example, if you begin by describing a scenario, you can end with the same scenario as
proof that your essay is helpful in creating a new understanding. You may also refer to the
introductory paragraph by using key words or parallel concepts and images that you also
used in the introduction.

Synthesize, dont summarize: Include a brief summary of the papers main points, but dont
simply repeat things that were in your paper. Instead, show your reader how the points you
made and the support and examples you used fit together. Pull it all together.

Include a provocative insight or quotation from the research or reading you did for your
paper.

Propose a course of action, a solution to an issue, or questions for further study. This can
redirect your readers thought process and help her to apply your info and ideas to her own
life or to see the broader implications.

Point to broader implications. For example, if your paper examines the Greensboro sit-ins or
another event in the Civil Rights Movement, you could point out its impact on the Civil
Rights Movement as a whole. A paper about the style of writer Virginia Woolf could point to
her influence on other writers or on later feminists.

Avoid This Kind of Conclusions

Beginning with an unnecessary, overused phrase such as in conclusion, in summary, or

in closing. Although these phrases can work in speeches, they come across as wooden and
trite in writing.
Stating the thesis for the very first time in the conclusion.
Introducing a new idea or subtopic in your conclusion.
Ending with a rephrased thesis statement without any substantive changes.
Making sentimental, emotional appeals that are out of character with the rest of an analytical
paper.
 Including evidence (quotations, statistics, etc.) that should be in the body of the paper.

Ineffective Conclusions

The Thats My Story and Im Sticking to It Conclusion.This conclusion just restates the
thesis and is usually painfully short. It does not push the ideas forward. People write this
kind of conclusion when they cant think of anything else to say. Example: In conclusion,
Frederick Douglass was, as we have seen, a pioneer in American education, proving that
education was a major force for social change with regard to slavery.

The Sherlock Holmes Conclusion.Sometimes writers will state the thesis for the very first
time in the conclusion. You might be tempted to use this strategy if you dont want to give
everything away too early in your paper. You may think it would be more dramatic to keep
the reader in the dark until the end and then wow him with your main idea, as in a
Sherlock Holmes mystery. The reader, however, does not expect a mystery, but an analytical
discussion of your topic in an academic style, with the main argument (thesis) stated up
front. Example: (After a paper that lists numerous incidents from the book but never says
what these incidents reveal about Douglass and his views on education): So, as the evidence
above demonstrates, Douglass saw education as a way to undermine the slaveholders power
and also an important step toward freedom.

The America the Beautiful/I Am Woman/We Shall Overcome Conclusion.This kind

of conclusion usually draws on emotion to make its appeal, but while this emotion and even
sentimentality may be very heartfelt, it is usually out of character with the rest of an
analytical paper. A more sophisticated commentary, rather than emotional praise, would be a
more fitting tribute to the topic. Example: Because of the efforts of fine Americans like
Frederick Douglass, countless others have seen the shining beacon of light that is education.
His example was a torch that lit the way for others. Frederick Douglass was truly an
American hero.

The Grab Bag Conclusion.This kind of conclusion includes extra information that the
writer found or thought of but couldnt integrate into the main paper. You may find it hard to
leave out details that you discovered after hours of research and thought, but adding random
facts and bits of evidence at the end of an otherwise-well-organized essay can just create
confusion. Example: In addition to being an educational pioneer, Frederick Douglass
provides an interesting case study for masculinity in the American South. He also offers
historians an interesting glimpse into slave resistance when he confronts Covey, the
overseer. His relationships with female relatives reveal the importance of family in the slave
community.
SUGGESTION
Give suggestions / recommendations based on the results of the study. What practical steps can
educators take to implement the key findings of the research study? Remember, these
recommendations must be supported by the statistical findings from the data analysis. If the
statistical results found that a new teaching program improves mathematical exam scores, then the
only valid recommendation that can be made is that the new teaching program should be
implemented in order to improve exam scores. However, if the data analysis found that the new
teaching program does not improve mathematical exam scores, then the researcher cannot conclude
that the new teaching program should be implemented, because the program was found to be
ineffective in improving exam scores.

Educators can only change their own behavior; they cannot change the government. Therefore, the
most beneficial recommendations will be ones that educators themselves can implement.

Below is a sample recommendation. Notice how the first sentence provides the empirical support
for the recommendation.

This study found that there is considerable variation in thestudents' judgments of acceptability of
ethical study practices, providing evidence that university students are not certain about the right
way to study. Thus, teachers need to spend class time educating students about positive, effective
study skills. Few students understand and use good study practices without explicit instruction
(Weinstein, Meyer, Husman, Van Mater Stone, & McKeachie, 2006). Therefore, direct instruction in
study skills is necessary. For example, teachers should instruct their students on how to set goals
for their educationlearning as well as instruction on specific study practices such as effectively
reading textbooks and studying notes for the exam. When teachers spend the time necessary for
teaching study skills, then students will not be uncertain about ethical study practices and will be
more prepared for their exams. As Murdock and Anderman (2006) note, students who are confident
in their abilities engage in less cheating behaviors.

After the recommendations have been written, reread each recommendation. Consider which
statistical result from the results section supports that recommendation. If there is no statistical
result to support the recommendation, then it must be canceled.

Suggestions for Further Research

Every research study provides one or two answers about education, but also opens the door for five
to ten additional questions. Based on the Discussion/Summary of Findings and Limitations of the
study, what additional research should be conducted? What questions arose because of the major
finding of your study? How can other research studies improve over the limitations that were
described in the Limitations section? A sample of Suggestions for Further Research section is
below.

Educational researchers need to continue conducting empirical research to ascertain the factors
that contribute to cheating amongst students. First, researchers should identify the types of
malpractices that are most frequent amongst students. Second, researchers should determine what
types of factors influence students to engage in examination malpractice. Finally, experimental
research should be conducted to test various strategies for preventing examination malpractice to
determine which strategies are most effective.
There are a number of gaps in our knowledge around public involvement in research that follow
from our findings, and would benefit from further research, including realist evaluation to extend
and further test the theory we have developed here:

1. In-depth exploration of how PIs become committed to public involvement and how to
influence agnostic or sceptical PIs would be very helpful. Further research might compare,
for example, training with peer-influencing strategies in engendering PI commitment.
Research could explore the leadership role of other research team members, including
research partners, and how collective leadership might support effective public involvement.

2. More methodological work is needed on how to robustly capture the impact and outcomes
of public involvement in research (building as well on the PiiAF work of Popay et al.51),
including further economic analysis and exploration of impact when research partners are
integral to research teams.

3. Research to develop approaches and carry out a full costbenefit analysis of public
involvement in research would be beneficial. Although methodologically challenging, it
would be very useful to conduct some longer-term studies which sought to quantify the
impact of public involvement on such key indicators as participant recruitment and retention
in clinical trials.

4. It would also be helpful to capture qualitatively the experiences and perspectives of research
partners who have had mixed or negative experiences, since they may be less likely than
enthusiasts to volunteer to participate in studies of involvement in research such as ours.
Similarly, further research might explore the (relatively rare) experiences of marginalised
and seldom-heard groups involved in research.

5. Payment for public involvement in research remains a contested issue with strongly held
positions for and against; it would be helpful to further explore the value research partners
and researchers place on payment and its effectiveness for enhancing involvement in and
impact on research.

6. A final relatively narrow but important question that we identified after data collection had
finished is: what is the impact of the long periods of relative non-involvement following
initial periods of more intense involvement for research partners in some types of research,
particularly clinical trials?
Reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suggestion

http://ncrve.berkeley.edu/abstracts/MDS-1082/MDS-1082-RECOMME.html

https://www.papermasters.com/conclusions_recommendations.html

http://dissertation.laerd.com/types-of-future-research-suggestion.php

http://korbedpsych.com/R19Ch5.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK260175/

http://www.laflemm.com/reso/conclusions.html

http://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/conclusions/

http://www.crlsresearchguide.org/18_Writing_Conclusion.asp

https://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/Conclusions.html