how to end an essay grammarly

• PRO Courses Guides New Tech Help Pro Expert Videos About wikiHow Pro Upgrade Sign In
• EDIT Edit this Article
• EXPLORE Tech Help Pro About Us Random Article Quizzes Request a New Article Community Dashboard This Or That Game Popular Categories Arts and Entertainment Artwork Books Movies Computers and Electronics Computers Phone Skills Technology Hacks Health Men's Health Mental Health Women's Health Relationships Dating Love Relationship Issues Hobbies and Crafts Crafts Drawing Games Education & Communication Communication Skills Personal Development Studying Personal Care and Style Fashion Hair Care Personal Hygiene Youth Personal Care School Stuff Dating All Categories Arts and Entertainment Finance and Business Home and Garden Relationship Quizzes Cars & Other Vehicles Food and Entertaining Personal Care and Style Sports and Fitness Computers and Electronics Health Pets and Animals Travel Education & Communication Hobbies and Crafts Philosophy and Religion Work World Family Life Holidays and Traditions Relationships Youth
• Browse Articles
• Learn Something New
• Quizzes Hot
• This Or That Game New
• Train Your Brain
• Explore More
• Support wikiHow
• About wikiHow
• Log in / Sign up
• Education and Communications
• College University and Postgraduate
• Academic Writing

How to Conclude an Essay (with Examples)

Last Updated: April 3, 2023 Fact Checked

Writing a Strong Conclusion

What to avoid, brainstorming tricks.

This article was co-authored by Jake Adams and by wikiHow staff writer, Aly Rusciano . Jake Adams is an academic tutor and the owner of Simplifi EDU, a Santa Monica, California based online tutoring business offering learning resources and online tutors for academic subjects K-College, SAT & ACT prep, and college admissions applications. With over 14 years of professional tutoring experience, Jake is dedicated to providing his clients the very best online tutoring experience and access to a network of excellent undergraduate and graduate-level tutors from top colleges all over the nation. Jake holds a BS in International Business and Marketing from Pepperdine University. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 3,205,576 times.

So, you’ve written an outstanding essay and couldn’t be more proud. But now you have to write the final paragraph. The conclusion simply summarizes what you’ve already written, right? Well, not exactly. Your essay’s conclusion should be a bit more finessed than that. Luckily, you’ve come to the perfect place to learn how to write a conclusion. We’ve put together this guide to fill you in on everything you should and shouldn’t do when ending an essay. Follow our advice, and you’ll have a stellar conclusion worthy of an A+ in no time.

Things You Should Know

• Rephrase your thesis to include in your final paragraph to bring the essay full circle.
• End your essay with a call to action, warning, or image to make your argument meaningful.
• Keep your conclusion concise and to the point, so you don’t lose a reader’s attention.
• Do your best to avoid adding new information to your conclusion and only emphasize points you’ve already made in your essay.

• “All in all”
• “Ultimately”
• “Furthermore”
• “As a consequence”
• “As a result”

• Make sure to write your main points in a new and unique way to avoid repetition.

• Let’s say this is your original thesis statement: “Allowing students to visit the library during lunch improves campus life and supports academic achievement.”
• Restating your thesis for your conclusion could look like this: “Evidence shows students who have access to their school’s library during lunch check out more books and are more likely to complete their homework.”
• The restated thesis has the same sentiment as the original while also summarizing other points of the essay.

• “When you use plastic water bottles, you pollute the ocean. Switch to using a glass or metal water bottle instead. The planet and sea turtles will thank you.”
• “The average person spends roughly 7 hours on their phone a day, so there’s no wonder cybersickness is plaguing all generations.”
• “Imagine walking on the beach, except the soft sand is made up of cigarette butts. They burn your feet but keep washing in with the tide. If we don’t clean up the ocean, this will be our reality.”
• “ Lost is not only a show that changed the course of television, but it’s also a reflection of humanity as a whole.”
• “If action isn’t taken to end climate change today, the global temperature will dangerously rise from 4.5 to 8 °F (−15.3 to −13.3 °C) by 2100.”

• Focus on your essay's most prevalent or important parts. What key points do you want readers to take away or remember about your essay?

• For instance, instead of writing, “That’s why I think that Abraham Lincoln was the best American President,” write, “That’s why Abraham Lincoln was the best American President.”
• There’s no room for ifs, ands, or buts—your opinion matters and doesn’t need to be apologized for!

• For instance, words like “firstly,” “secondly,” and “thirdly” may be great transition statements for body paragraphs but are unnecessary in a conclusion.

• For instance, say you began your essay with the idea that humanity’s small sense of sense stems from space’s vast size. Try returning to this idea in the conclusion by emphasizing that as human knowledge grows, space becomes smaller.

• For example, you could extend an essay on the television show Orange is the New Black by bringing up the culture of imprisonment in America.

Community Q&A

• Always review your essay after writing it for proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and don’t be afraid to revise. Thanks Helpful 2 Not Helpful 1
• Ask a friend, family member, or teacher for help if you’re stuck. Sometimes a second opinion is all you need. Thanks Helpful 2 Not Helpful 1

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.uts.edu.au/current-students/support/helps/self-help-resources/grammar/transition-signals
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/common_writing_assignments/argument_papers/conclusions.html
• ↑ http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/conclude.html
• ↑ https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/ending-essay-conclusions
• ↑ https://www.pittsfordschools.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=542&dataid=4677&FileName=conclusions1.pdf
• ↑ https://www.cuyamaca.edu/student-support/tutoring-center/files/student-resources/how-to-write-a-good-conclusion.pdf
• ↑ https://library.sacredheart.edu/c.php?g=29803&p=185935

About This Article

To end an essay, start your conclusion with a phrase that makes it clear your essay is coming to a close, like "In summary," or "All things considered." Then, use a few sentences to briefly summarize the main points of your essay by rephrasing the topic sentences of your body paragraphs. Finally, end your conclusion with a call to action that encourages your readers to do something or learn more about your topic. In general, try to keep your conclusion between 5 and 7 sentences long. For more tips from our English co-author, like how to avoid common pitfalls when writing an essay conclusion, scroll down! Did this summary help you? Yes No

• Send fan mail to authors

Reader Success Stories

Eva Dettling

Jan 23, 2019

Did this article help you?

Mar 7, 2017

Jul 16, 2021

Gabby Suzuki

Oct 17, 2019

Nicole Murphy

Apr 26, 2017

Featured Articles

Trending Articles

Watch Articles

• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• Do Not Sell or Share My Info
• Not Selling Info

wikiHow Tech Help Pro:

Level up your tech skills and stay ahead of the curve

In a short paper—even a research paper—you don’t need to provide an exhaustive summary as part of your conclusion. But you do need to make some kind of transition between your final body paragraph and your concluding paragraph. This may come in the form of a few sentences of summary. Or it may come in the form of a sentence that brings your readers back to your thesis or main idea and reminds your readers where you began and how far you have traveled.

So, for example, in a paper about the relationship between ADHD and rejection sensitivity, Vanessa Roser begins by introducing readers to the fact that researchers have studied the relationship between the two conditions and then provides her explanation of that relationship. Here’s her thesis: “While socialization may indeed be an important factor in RS, I argue that individuals with ADHD may also possess a neurological predisposition to RS that is exacerbated by the differing executive and emotional regulation characteristic of ADHD.”

In her final paragraph, Roser reminds us of where she started by echoing her thesis: “This literature demonstrates that, as with many other conditions, ADHD and RS share a delicately intertwined pattern of neurological similarities that is rooted in the innate biology of an individual’s mind, a connection that cannot be explained in full by the behavioral mediation hypothesis.”  

Highlight the “so what”  

At the beginning of your paper, you explain to your readers what’s at stake—why they should care about the argument you’re making. In your conclusion, you can bring readers back to those stakes by reminding them why your argument is important in the first place. You can also draft a few sentences that put those stakes into a new or broader context.

In the conclusion to her paper about ADHD and RS, Roser echoes the stakes she established in her introduction—that research into connections between ADHD and RS has led to contradictory results, raising questions about the “behavioral mediation hypothesis.”

She writes, “as with many other conditions, ADHD and RS share a delicately intertwined pattern of neurological similarities that is rooted in the innate biology of an individual’s mind, a connection that cannot be explained in full by the behavioral mediation hypothesis.”  

Leave your readers with the “now what”  

After the “what” and the “so what,” you should leave your reader with some final thoughts. If you have written a strong introduction, your readers will know why you have been arguing what you have been arguing—and why they should care. And if you’ve made a good case for your thesis, then your readers should be in a position to see things in a new way, understand new questions, or be ready for something that they weren’t ready for before they read your paper.

In her conclusion, Roser offers two “now what” statements. First, she explains that it is important to recognize that the flawed behavioral mediation hypothesis “seems to place a degree of fault on the individual. It implies that individuals with ADHD must have elicited such frequent or intense rejection by virtue of their inadequate social skills, erasing the possibility that they may simply possess a natural sensitivity to emotion.” She then highlights the broader implications for treatment of people with ADHD, noting that recognizing the actual connection between rejection sensitivity and ADHD “has profound implications for understanding how individuals with ADHD might best be treated in educational settings, by counselors, family, peers, or even society as a whole.”

To find your own “now what” for your essay’s conclusion, try asking yourself these questions:

• What can my readers now understand, see in a new light, or grapple with that they would not have understood in the same way before reading my paper? Are we a step closer to understanding a larger phenomenon or to understanding why what was at stake is so important?  
• What questions can I now raise that would not have made sense at the beginning of my paper? Questions for further research? Other ways that this topic could be approached?  
• Are there other applications for my research? Could my questions be asked about different data in a different context? Could I use my methods to answer a different question?  
• What action should be taken in light of this argument? What action do I predict will be taken or could lead to a solution?  
• What larger context might my argument be a part of?  

What to avoid in your conclusion  

• a complete restatement of all that you have said in your paper.  
• a substantial counterargument that you do not have space to refute; you should introduce counterarguments before your conclusion.  
• an apology for what you have not said. If you need to explain the scope of your paper, you should do this sooner—but don’t apologize for what you have not discussed in your paper.  
• fake transitions like “in conclusion” that are followed by sentences that aren’t actually conclusions. (“In conclusion, I have now demonstrated that my thesis is correct.”)
• picture_as_pdf Conclusions

How to Write a Conclusion: End Your Writing With a Bang

In this article, we explain how to write a conclusion or a strong ending that leaves the reader wanting more.

Whether you’re writing a thesis paper or a non-fiction book, you are going to need an effective conclusion. A conclusion should summarize the main points of the work, so the reader walks away with a basic idea of what you have written.

Yet the conclusion should not simply repeat everything you said in your body paragraphs. In fact, for some writers, the concluding paragraphs are the hardest to write, because they want to say something else about the work without simply restating everything they already wrote.

Learning how to write a conclusion is an important part of becoming a good writer, and this guide will help.

Step 1. Tie in Your Thesis Statement

Step 2. restate your main points, step 3. connect to your opening statements, step 4. add additional insight, what to avoid in your conclusion, basic outline of a conclusion, common types of conclusions, a final word on how to write a conclusion, how to write a conclusion for an essay, how to write a conclusion in a research paper, how to write a conclusion paragraph.

So when you come to the end of your piece of writing, you need to create a conclusion paragraph. This paragraph answers the reader’s question of “so what?” about what you have written. It gives a “why” to what you have already stated.

So how can you write one? Here are some steps to follow that will make your conclusion strong.

Tie your conclusion back to your original thesis statement. While you do not want to copy it word-for-word, you can restate it in a different way.

Doing this shows the reader why you spent the time writing your piece to support your original idea.

Next, restate your main points. Summarize the ideas differently than you originally discussed.

The reader should come away from the conclusion with a thorough review of everything you said in your writing.

Connect your conclusion to the introduction in some way. Since the introduction likely had your thesis statement, this is one way to do so, but you can also tie in the two by stating similar concepts or reviewing the story you opened the piece using.

A good conclusion to a research paper or essay will add a bit of insight to the piece. This is where you tell people why they should care about what you wrote. 

Your additional insight can create a sense of closure as well. The reader should come away from the closing sentence with a feeling that the piece is complete and they have all of the information they need.

When writing a conclusion, you need to avoid some common mistakes . Remember, this is where you want to bring your ideas full circle and leave the reader with a final impression of your writing. As such, avoid these problems:

• Do not introduce a new idea or thesis in the conclusion. If you have something further to say on the topic, it needs to be placed elsewhere in the piece.
• Do not use words like “in summary” or “in conclusion”. The reader should know that you are writing the conclusion and does not need you to state this.
• Avoid changing the tone of your piece. This should stay constant from the first sentence to the final word of your writing. 

There is a basic outline you can follow when writing a  conclusion paragraph . Here is the template to follow:

• Topic Sentence: Repeat your thesis statement in a new way to be the topic sentence of your paragraph. Don’t restate it exactly. While this isn’t plagiarism, it is boring to read.
• Supporting Sentences: Restate your main arguments and points in the next sentences. Connect the ideas to one another.
• Closing Sentence: this is your final statement, call-to-action or concluding thought. It finishes the entire piece.

There are three main types of conclusions you can make in a piece of writing. These include:

• Summarizing: These conclusions rehash the main points of the essay or report. They show the importance of your ideas and cover the key points so the reader remembers what you spoke on. A summary conclusion does not give opinions or feelings.
• Editorializing: These conclusions are part of argumentative essays, and they state the implications of your argument. They may also include a call-to-action on the topic or try to create a personal connection with the reader. This is the type of conclusion that talks about feelings and beliefs.
• Externalizing: These conclusions transition from your essay or paper to further study or some future research on the topic. This is particularly helpful in papers on complex subject matter.

If you follow the basic outline and void common mistakes , you can learn how to write a conclusion that works. Your conclusion gives you the chance to have the last word on your topic and make a restatement of your main ideas. It rounds out the body of the paper and makes your work look finished.

A strong conclusion also has a major impact on the reader. If you have done your job right, it leaves the reader with a new understanding on the topic you have written about and draws the reader to your main conclusion. 

FAQs on How to Write a Conclusion

When you are writing an essay , you will use a basic structure of introduction, supporting paragraphs, and conclusion. The conclusion paragraph will restate your thesis and your supporting paragraphs in a concise, simple format.

A conclusion in a research paper will restate your thesis statement and your main outline points. You may not have room in one paragraph for all of the points of your paper, but the main points get restated in the conclusion.

Nicole Harms has been writing professionally since 2006. She specializes in education content and real estate writing but enjoys a wide gamut of topics. Her goal is to connect with the reader in an engaging, but informative way. Her work has been featured on USA Today, and she ghostwrites for many high-profile companies. As a former teacher, she is passionate about both research and grammar, giving her clients the quality they demand in today's online marketing world.

View all posts

404 Not found

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Guest Essay

Mike Pence: Donald Trump Has Betrayed the Pro-Life Movement

By Mike Pence

Mr. Pence was vice president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 and is a former candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Serving as vice president in the most pro-life administration in American history was one of the greatest honors of my life. Of all our accomplishments, I am perhaps most proud that the Supreme Court justices we confirmed voted to send Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of history, ending a travesty of jurisprudence that led to the death of more than 63 million unborn Americans.

Since Roe was overturned, I have been inspired by the efforts of pro-life leaders in states across the country, including Indiana , to advance strong protections for the unborn and vulnerable women.

But while nearly half of our states have enacted strong pro-life laws, some Democrats continue to support taxpayer-funded abortions up to the moment of birth in the rest of the country.

Which is why I believe the time has come to adopt a minimum national standard restricting abortion after 15 weeks in order to end late-term abortions nationwide.

The majority of Americans favor some form of restriction on abortions, and passing legislation prohibiting late-term abortions would largely reflect that view. Democrats in Washington have already attempted to legalize abortion up to the moment of birth, and they failed. But they will try again, with similar extremism, if abortion restrictions are not put in place at the federal level.

Contrary to Democrats’ claims, prohibiting abortions after 15 weeks is entirely reasonable.

While Democrats often hold up Europe as a model for America to emulate, a vast majority of European countries have national limits on elective abortion after 15 weeks. Germany and Belgium have a gestational limit of up to 14 weeks. A majority of European countries are even more restrictive, with Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Greece, Austria, Italy and Ireland banning abortion on demand after 12 weeks.

When it comes to abortion policy, America today appears closer to communist China and North Korea than to the nations of Europe. By prohibiting late-term abortions after 15 weeks, America can move away from the radical fringe and squarely back into the mainstream of Western thought and jurisprudence.

That’s why it was so disheartening for me to see former President Trump’s recent retreat from the pro-life cause. Like so many other advocates for life, I was deeply disappointed when Mr. Trump stated that he considered abortion to be a states-only issue and would not sign a bill prohibiting late-term abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, even if it came to his desk.

I know firsthand just how committed he was to the pro-life movement during our time in office. Who can forget the way candidate Donald Trump denounced late-term abortion during a debate with Hillary Clinton in 2016, highlighting how she and other Democrats would allow doctors to “rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby.”

In 2018, ahead of a Senate vote on a 20-week national ban that was passed earlier by the House, the president publicly stated that he “strongly supported” efforts to end late-term abortions nationwide with exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother.

Now not only is Mr. Trump retreating from that position; he is leading other Republicans astray. One recent example is an Arizona Republican running for the U.S. Senate who followed Trump’s lead and pledged to oppose a federal ban on late-term abortions. When our leaders aren’t firmly committed to life, others will waver, too. Courage inspires imitation. So does weakness.

While some worry about the political ramifications of adopting a 15-week minimum national standard, history has proved that when Republicans stand for life without apology and contrast our common-sense positions with the extremism of the pro-abortion left, voters reward us with victories at the ballot box. In fact, voters overwhelmingly re-elected Govs. Mike DeWine of Ohio, Greg Abbott of Texas and Brian Kemp of Georgia, after they signed bills prohibiting abortion after six weeks.

But what should concern us far more than the politics of abortion is the immorality of ending an unborn human life. At 15 weeks of development, a baby’s face is well formed, and her eyes are sensitive to light. She can suck her thumb and make a fist. She is beginning to move and stretch. And she is created in the image of God, the same as you or me.

Now is not the time to surrender any ground in the fight for the right to life. While the former president has sounded the retreat on life at the national level, I pray that he will rediscover the passion for life that defined our four years in office and rejoin the fight to end late-term abortions in America once and for all. The character of our nation and the lives of generations not yet born demand nothing less.

Mike Pence was vice president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. A former governor of Indiana, he was a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .