in essay what is the purpose of a conclusion

Conclusions

What this handout is about.

This handout will explain the functions of conclusions, offer strategies for writing effective ones, help you evaluate conclusions you’ve drafted, and suggest approaches to avoid.

About conclusions

Introductions and conclusions can be difficult to write, but they’re worth investing time in. They can have a significant influence on a reader’s 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 reader’s life in some way. It is your gift to the reader.

Strategies for writing an effective conclusion

One or more of the following strategies may help you write an effective conclusion:

• Play the “So What” Game. If you’re stuck and feel like your conclusion isn’t 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. Here’s how it might go: You: Basically, I’m 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: That’s 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, don’t summarize. Include a brief summary of the paper’s main points, but don’t 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 reader’s thought process and help them to apply your info and ideas to their 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.

Strategies to avoid

• 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.

Four kinds of ineffective conclusions

• The “That’s My Story and I’m 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 can’t 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 don’t 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” them 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 couldn’t 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.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Douglass, Frederick. 1995. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. New York: Dover.

Hamilton College. n.d. “Conclusions.” Writing Center. Accessed June 14, 2019. https://www.hamilton.edu//academics/centers/writing/writing-resources/conclusions .

Holewa, Randa. 2004. “Strategies for Writing a Conclusion.” LEO: Literacy Education Online. Last updated February 19, 2004. https://leo.stcloudstate.edu/acadwrite/conclude.html.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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OASIS: Writing Center

Writing a paper: conclusions, writing a conclusion.

A conclusion is an important part of the paper; it provides closure for the reader while reminding the reader of the contents and importance of the paper. It accomplishes this by stepping back from the specifics in order to view the bigger picture of the document. In other words, it is reminding the reader of the main argument. For most course papers, it is usually one paragraph that simply and succinctly restates the main ideas and arguments, pulling everything together to help clarify the thesis of the paper. A conclusion does not introduce new ideas; instead, it should clarify the intent and importance of the paper. It can also suggest possible future research on the topic.

An Easy Checklist for Writing a Conclusion

It is important to remind the reader of the thesis of the paper so he is reminded of the argument and solutions you proposed.

Think of the main points as puzzle pieces, and the conclusion is where they all fit together to create a bigger picture. The reader should walk away with the bigger picture in mind.

Make sure that the paper places its findings in the context of real social change.

Make sure the reader has a distinct sense that the paper has come to an end. It is important to not leave the reader hanging. (You don’t want her to have flip-the-page syndrome, where the reader turns the page, expecting the paper to continue. The paper should naturally come to an end.)

No new ideas should be introduced in the conclusion. It is simply a review of the material that is already present in the paper. The only new idea would be the suggesting of a direction for future research.

Conclusion Example

As addressed in my analysis of recent research, the advantages of a later starting time for high school students significantly outweigh the disadvantages. A later starting time would allow teens more time to sleep--something that is important for their physical and mental health--and ultimately improve their academic performance and behavior. The added transportation costs that result from this change can be absorbed through energy savings. The beneficial effects on the students’ academic performance and behavior validate this decision, but its effect on student motivation is still unknown. I would encourage an in-depth look at the reactions of students to such a change. This sort of study would help determine the actual effects of a later start time on the time management and sleep habits of students.

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Essay Conclusions

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Learn about the elements of a successful essay conclusion.

The conclusion is a very important part of your essay. Although it is sometimes treated as a roundup of all of the bits that didn’t fit into the paper earlier, it deserves better treatment than that! It's the last thing the reader will see, so it tends to stick in the reader's memory. It's also a great place to remind the reader exactly why your topic is important. A conclusion is more than just "the last paragraph"—it's a working part of the paper. This is the place to push your reader to think about the consequences of your topic for the wider world or for the reader's own life!

A good conclusion should do a few things:

Restate your thesis

Synthesize or summarize your major points

Make the context of your argument clear

Restating Your Thesis

You've already spent time and energy crafting a solid thesis statement for your introduction, and if you've done your job right, your whole paper focuses on that thesis statement. That's why it's so important to address the thesis in your conclusion! Many writers choose to begin the conclusion by restating the thesis, but you can put your thesis into the conclusion anywhere—the first sentence of the paragraph, the last sentence, or in between. Here are a few tips for rephrasing your thesis:

Remind the reader that you've proven this thesis over the course of your paper. For example, if you're arguing that your readers should get their pets from animal shelters rather than pet stores, you might say, "If you were considering that puppy in the pet-shop window, remember that your purchase will support 'puppy mills' instead of rescuing a needy dog, and consider selecting your new friend at your local animal shelter." This example gives the reader not only the thesis of the paper, but a reminder of the most powerful point in the argument!

Revise the thesis statement so that it reflects the relationship you've developed with the reader during the paper. For example, if you've written a paper that targets parents of young children, you can find a way to phrase your thesis to capitalize on that—maybe by beginning your thesis statement with, "As a parent of a young child…"

Don’t repeat your thesis word for word—make sure that your new statement is an independent, fresh sentence!

Summary or Synthesis

This section of the conclusion might come before the thesis statement or after it. Your conclusion should remind the reader of what your paper actually says! The best conclusion will include a synthesis, not just a summary—instead of a mere list of your major points, the best conclusion will draw those points together and relate them to one another so that your reader can apply the information given in the essay. Here are a couple of ways to do that:

Give a list of the major arguments for your thesis (usually, these are the topic sentences of the parts of your essay).

Explain how these parts are connected. For example, in the animal-shelter essay, you might point out that adopting a shelter dog helps more animals because your adoption fee supports the shelter, which makes your choice more socially responsible.

One of the most important functions of the conclusion is to provide context for your argument. Your reader may finish your essay without a problem and understand your argument without understanding why that argument is important. Your introduction might point out the reason your topic matters, but your conclusion should also tackle this questions. Here are some strategies for making your reader see why the topic is important:

Tell the reader what you want him or her to do. Is your essay a call to action? If so, remind the reader of what he/she should do. If not, remember that asking the reader to think a certain way is an action in itself. (In the above examples, the essay asks the reader to adopt a shelter dog—a specific action.)

Explain why this topic is timely or important. For example, the animal-shelter essay might end with a statistic about the number of pets in shelters waiting for adoption.

Remind the readers of why the topic matters to them personally. For example, it doesn’t matter much if you believe in the mission of animal shelters, if you're not planning to get a dog; however, once you're looking for a dog, it is much more important. The conclusion of this essay might say, "Since you’re in the market for a dog, you have a major decision to make: where to get one." This will remind the reader that the argument is personally important!

Conclusion paragraphs

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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

Writing Center

Strategic enrollment management and student success, conclusions and why they matter, a guide to what they are, how they work, and how to master them, conclusions vs. introductions.

Similarly to introductions, conclusions exist to guide readers. While introductions guide readers into essays, conclusions guide readers out. These functions are equally important in the structure of an essay. A conclusion is a paragraph (or set of paragraphs) that comes at the very end of an essay and it must restate the thesis (say what the essay has argued) and summarize the argument.

Think about a conclusion from the reader's point of view as the end of a conversation

Hey!   Don't hang up on me!

Sometimes it's hard to know what to say in a conclusion. after all, you've just written the essay, what else can possibly be left to say? A lot of writers feel this way. However, an essay without a conclusion is similar to hanging up the phone the instant after you've told your friend a great story - your friend is going to think about how rude you were rather than about your story. In a phone conversation, you've got to wrap things up and say goodbye, this is also true for an essay. Make sure to provide your reader with a summary.

• A summary:   Since good stories are complex and can't be learned by heart the first time, give your reader a device to help remember and master your story (your argument).
• A sense of relevance:   Help the reader understand the point of your story by explaining the relevance of it.

How conclusions work

What does it really mean to say that a conclusion resembles the end of a phone conversation?

• All things come to an end.   Of course, you can't keep talking on the phone forever; both you and your friend expect an end to your conversation. At the same time, a conversation is something produced by two people, meaning that its end must be agreed upon, and if you hang up without warning, then you've seized all control, which isn't friendly. Even though the conclusion of an essay may be just a repetition of ideas found elsewhere, a reader needs to be able to see that things are winding down.
• An end means a last look.   If you sound polite and cheerful in saying goodbye, your friend will be much more likely to recall the story you've told and to look forward to hearing from you in the future. Because the conclusion to an essay is a reader's last impression of a writer's work, the writer must maintain excellence up to the last sentence, not dash something off quickly or run out of steam.
• A last look is a kind of legacy.   While you probably wouldn't tell your friend a pointless story, or one with no relation to any shared experience, making the relevance clear helps your friend know how to think about your story. Similarly, an essay that leaves a reader with something to think about is an essay that is more likely to be judged favorably and even reread. Connecting the writing to the reader is central to succeeding in communicating the importance of your story.

Acing the conclusion

The strategies below can help you write a conclusion that leaves your reader satisfied and feeling like they've gotten closure on your ideas.

Remind and encapsulate

Remember that even though you are already familiar with your essay, your reader is not. Having a reader who wants to reread your work is great, but your reader shouldn't have to reread. Giving your reader a summary is similar to taking a snapshot of your whole essay. Looking at that snapshot reminds your reader of the main points that have come before. A snapshot is a lot easier to carry around than a thousand little details.

Acknowledge loose ends

Since issues are complex and often do not have a single, neat resolution, the topic of your essay doesn't need to either. What possible resolutions do you see for the issue you have presented? Is there even a resolution? In either case, say what you see. Don't present answers if you haven't found any. Just be honest.

Make connections

Show your reader the point of reading your essay. What did you learn from writing your essay? How might reading your essay be helpful to your reader? What does your essay contribute?

Don't get carried away

You don't have to revolutionize the world or say the absolute final world on an age-old debate. In fact, a grandiose conclusion may seem out of proportion in anything as short as an essay. Communicating an idea is enough.

Now let's apply these ideas to an example conclusion

The trend towards "good taste" in mass-market products draws into question the idea of good taste altogether   (Thesis) . Many things symbolizing high class living are in danger of losing their status simply because they can now be purchased at any Home Depot or Ikea;   (Summary 1: the first main point)   however, critics call décor and furniture exports such as Pier 1 Imports and Pottery Barn "cheap" not for offering sophisticated designs at bargain prices, but for offering them to all, even to mail-order costumers   (Summary 2: the second main point) . Worst of all, Martha Stewart is said to have reduced good taste to merely another brand name by creating a line of home wares for the suburban superstore K-Mart   (Summary 3: the third main point) . The implication is that a fine object loses its fineness as it gains wider appreciation, that beauty and elegance are qualities conferred by the elite and that an object's glow vanishes once too many have touched it, In other words, the wealthy and influential are not content with wealth and influence, but must have a world all to themselves; when others enter this world, they come to destroy   (Relevance 1: a synthesis of the main points that reveals their significance in a wider context) . Martha Stewart would have to disagree. Sconce lights might look out of place on a cattle ranch, but their popularity does not equate them with the neon signs that one sees in the windows of bars - quality is quality. If replacing the average household's melamine plates with porcelain makes some people insecure, then so be it   (Relevance 2: a stance that applies to readers) .

How to Write a Conclusion for an Essay

By the time you get to the final paragraph of your paper, you have already done so much work on your essay, so all you want to do is to wrap it up as quickly as possible. You’ve already made a stunning introduction, proven your argument, and structured the whole piece as supposed – who cares about making a good conclusion paragraph?

The only thing you need to remember is that the conclusion of an essay is not just the last paragraph of an academic paper where you restate your thesis and key arguments. A concluding paragraph is also your opportunity to have a final impact on your audience. 

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How to write a conclusion paragraph that leaves a lasting impression – In this guide, the team at EssayPro is going to walk you through the process of writing a perfect conclusion step by step. Additionally, we will share valuable tips and tricks to help students of all ages impress their readers at the last moment.

Instead of Intro: What Is a Conclusion?

Before we can move on, let’s take a moment here to define the conclusion itself. According to the standard conclusion definition, it is pretty much the last part of something, its result, or end. However, this term is rather broad and superficial.

When it comes to writing academic papers, a concluding statement refers to an opinion, judgment, suggestion, or position arrived at by logical reasoning (through the arguments provided in the body of the text). Therefore, if you are wondering “what is a good closing sentence like?” – keep on reading.

What Does a Good Conclusion Mean?

Writing a good conclusion for a paper isn’t easy. However, we are going to walk you through this process step by step. Although there are generally no strict rules on how to formulate one, there are some basic principles that everyone should keep in mind. In this section, we will share some core ideas for writing a good conclusion, and, later in the article, we will also provide you with more practical advice and examples.

Here are the core goals a good conclusion should complete:

• “Wrap up” the entire paper;
• Demonstrate to readers that the author accomplished what he/she set out to do;
• Show how you the author has proved their thesis statement;
• Give a sense of completeness and closure on the topic;
• Leave something extra for your reader to think about;
• Leave a powerful final impact on a reader.

Another key thing to remember is that you should not introduce any new ideas or arguments to your paper's conclusion. It should only sum up what you have already written, revisit your thesis statement, and end with a powerful final impression.

When considering how to write a conclusion that works, here are the key points to keep in mind:

• A concluding sentence should only revisit the thesis statement, not restate it;
• It should summarize the main ideas from the body of the paper;
• It should demonstrate the significance and relevance of your work;
• An essay’s conclusion should include a call for action and leave space for further study or development of the topic (if necessary).

How Long Should a Conclusion Be? 

Although there are no strict universal rules regarding the length of an essay’s final clause, both teachers and experienced writers recommend keeping it clear, concise, and straight to the point. There is an unspoken rule that the introduction and conclusion of an academic paper should both be about 10% of the overall paper’s volume. For example, if you were assigned a 1500 word essay, both the introductory and final clauses should be approximately 150 words long (300 together).

Why You Need to Know How to End an Essay:

A conclusion is what drives a paper to its logical end. It also drives the main points of your piece one last time. It is your last opportunity to impact and impress your audience. And, most importantly, it is your chance to demonstrate to readers why your work matters. Simply put, the final paragraph of your essay should answer the last important question a reader will have – “So what?”

If you do a concluding paragraph right, it can give your readers a sense of logical completeness. On the other hand, if you do not make it powerful enough, it can leave them hanging, and diminish the effect of the entire piece.

Strategies to Crafting a Proper Conclusion

Although there are no strict rules for what style to use to write your conclusion, there are several strategies that have been proven to be effective. In the list below, you can find some of the most effective strategies with some good conclusion paragraph examples to help you grasp the idea.

One effective way to emphasize the significance of your essay and give the audience some thought to ponder about is by taking a look into the future. The “When and If” technique is quite powerful when it comes to supporting your points in the essay’s conclusion.

Prediction essay conclusion example: “Taking care of a pet is quite hard, which is the reason why most parents refuse their children’s requests to get a pet. However, the refusal should be the last choice of parents. If we want to inculcate a deep sense of responsibility and organization in our kids, and, at the same time, sprout compassion in them, we must let our children take care of pets.”

Another effective strategy is to link your conclusion to your introductory paragraph. This will create a full-circle narration for your readers, create a better understanding of your topic, and emphasize your key point.

Echo conclusion paragraph example: Introduction: “I believe that all children should grow up with a pet. I still remember the exact day my parents brought my first puppy to our house. This was one of the happiest moments in my life and, at the same time, one of the most life-changing ones. Growing up with a pet taught me a lot, and most importantly, it taught me to be responsible.” Conclusion:. “I remember when I picked up my first puppy and how happy I was at that time. Growing up with a pet, I learned what it means to take care of someone, make sure that he always has water and food, teach him, and constantly keep an eye on my little companion. Having a child grow up with a pet teaches them responsibility and helps them acquire a variety of other life skills like leadership, love, compassion, and empathy. This is why I believe that every kid should grow up with a pet!”

Finally, one more trick that will help you create a flawless conclusion is to amplify your main idea or to present it in another perspective of a larger context. This technique will help your readers to look at the problem discussed from a different angle.

Step-up argumentative essay conclusion example: “Despite the obvious advantages of owning a pet in childhood, I feel that we cannot generalize whether all children should have a pet. Whereas some kids may benefit from such experiences, namely, by becoming more compassionate, organized, and responsible, it really depends on the situation, motivation, and enthusiasm of a particular child for owning a pet.”

What is a clincher in an essay? – The final part of an essay’s conclusion is often referred to as a clincher sentence. According to the clincher definition, it is a final sentence that reinforces the main idea or leaves the audience with an intriguing thought to ponder upon. In a nutshell, the clincher is very similar to the hook you would use in an introductory paragraph. Its core mission is to seize the audience’s attention until the end of the paper. At the same time, this statement is what creates a sense of completeness and helps the author leave a lasting impression on the reader.

Now, since you now know what a clincher is, you are probably wondering how to use one in your own paper. First of all, keep in mind that a good clincher should be intriguing, memorable, smooth, and straightforward.

Generally, there are several different tricks you can use for your clincher statement; it can be:

• A short, but memorable and attention-grabbing conclusion;
• A relevant and memorable quote (only if it brings actual value);
• A call to action;
• A rhetorical question;
• An illustrative story or provocative example;
• A warning against a possibility or suggestion about the consequences of a discussed problem;
• A joke (however, be careful with this as it may not always be deemed appropriate).

Regardless of the technique you choose, make sure that your clincher is memorable and aligns with your introduction and thesis.

Clincher examples: - While New York may not be the only place with the breathtaking views, it is definitely among my personal to 3… and that’s what definitely makes it worth visiting. - “Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars”, Divine Comedy - Don’t you think all these advantages sound like almost life-saving benefits of owning a pet? “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”, The Great Gatsby

Conclusion Writing Don'ts 

Now, when you know what tricks and techniques you should use to create a perfect conclusion, let’s look at some of the things you should not do with our online paper writing service :

• Starting with some cliché concluding sentence starters. Many students find common phrases like “In conclusion,” “Therefore,” “In summary,” or similar statements to be pretty good conclusion starters. However, though such conclusion sentence starters may work in certain cases – for example, in speeches – they are overused, so it is recommended not to use them in writing to introduce your conclusion.
• Putting the first mention of your thesis statement in the conclusion – it has to be presented in your introduction first.
• Providing new arguments, subtopics, or ideas in the conclusion paragraph.
• Including a slightly changed or unchanged thesis statement.
• Providing arguments and evidence that belong in the body of the work.
• Writing too long, hard to read, or confusing sentences.

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Conclusion Paragraph Outline

The total number of sentences in your final paragraph may vary depending on the number of points you discussed in your essay, as well as on the overall word count of your paper. However, the overall conclusion paragraph outline will remain the same and consists of the following elements:

• A conclusion starter:

The first part of your paragraph should drive readers back to your thesis statement. Thus, if you were wondering how to start a conclusion, the best way to do it is by rephrasing your thesis statement.

• Summary of the body paragraphs:

Right after revisiting your thesis, you should include several sentences that wrap up the key highlights and points from your body paragraphs. This part of your conclusion can consist of 2-3 sentences—depending on the number of arguments you’ve made. If necessary, you can also explain to the readers how your main points fit together.

• A concluding sentence:

Finally, you should end your paragraph with a last, powerful sentence that leaves a lasting impression, gives a sense of logical completeness, and connects readers back to the introduction of the paper.

These three key elements make up a perfect essay conclusion. Now, to give you an even better idea of how to create a perfect conclusion, let us give you a sample conclusion paragraph outline with examples from an argumentative essay on the topic of “Every Child Should Own a Pet:

• Sentence 1: Starter
• ~ Thesis: "Though taking care of a pet may be a bit challenging for small children. Parents should not restrict their kids from having a pet as it helps them grow into more responsible and compassionate people."
• ~ Restated thesis for a conclusion: "I can say that taking care of a pet is good for every child."
• Sentences 2-4: Summary
• ~ "Studies have shown that pet owners generally have fewer health problems."
• ~ "Owning a pet teaches a child to be more responsible."
• ~ "Spending time with a pet reduces stress, feelings of loneliness, and anxiety."
• Sentence 5: A concluding sentence
• ~ "Pets can really change a child life for the better, so don't hesitate to endorse your kid's desire to own a pet."

This is a clear example of how you can shape your conclusion paragraph.

How to Conclude Various Types of Essays

Depending on the type of academic essay you are working on, your concluding paragraph's style, tone, and length may vary. In this part of our guide, we will tell you how to end different types of essays and other works.

How to End an Argumentative Essay

Persuasive or argumentative essays always have the single goal of convincing readers of something (an idea, stance, or viewpoint) by appealing to arguments, facts, logic, and even emotions. The conclusion for such an essay has to be persuasive as well. A good trick you can use is to illustrate a real-life scenario that proves your stance or encourages readers to take action. More about persuasive essay outline you can read in our article.

Here are a few more tips for making a perfect conclusion for an argumentative essay:

• Carefully read the whole essay before you begin;
• Re-emphasize your ideas;
• Discuss possible implications;
• Don’t be afraid to appeal to the reader’s emotions.

How to End a Compare and Contrast Essay

The purpose of a compare and contrast essay is to emphasize the differences or similarities between two or more objects, people, phenomena, etc. Therefore, a logical conclusion should highlight how the reviewed objects are different or similar. Basically, in such a paper, your conclusion should recall all of the key common and distinctive features discussed in the body of your essay and also give readers some food for thought after they finish reading it.

How to Conclude a Descriptive Essay

The key idea of a descriptive essay is to showcase your creativity and writing skills by painting a vivid picture with the help of words. This is one of the most creative types of essays as it requires you to show a story, not tell it. This kind of essay implies using a lot of vivid details. Respectively, the conclusion of such a paper should also use descriptive imagery and, at the same time, sum up the main ideas. A good strategy for ending a descriptive essay would be to begin with a short explanation of why you wrote the essay. Then, you should reflect on how your topic affects you. In the middle of the conclusion, you should cover the most critical moments of the story to smoothly lead the reader into a logical closing statement. The “clincher”, in this case, should be a thought-provoking final sentence that leaves a good and lasting impression on the audience. Do not lead the reader into the essay and then leave them with dwindling memories of it.

How to Conclude an Essay About Yourself

If you find yourself writing an essay about yourself, you need to tell a personal story. As a rule, such essays talk about the author’s experiences, which is why a conclusion should create a feeling of narrative closure. A good strategy is to end your story with a logical finale and the lessons you have learned, while, at the same time, linking it to the introductory paragraph and recalling key moments from the story.

How to End an Informative Essay

Unlike other types of papers, informative or expository essays load readers with a lot of information and facts. In this case, “Synthesize, don’t summarize” is the best technique you can use to end your paper. Simply put, instead of recalling all of the major facts, you should approach your conclusion from the “So what?” position by highlighting the significance of the information provided.

How to Conclude a Narrative Essay

In a nutshell, a narrative essay is based on simple storytelling. The purpose of this paper is to share a particular story in detail. Therefore, the conclusion for such a paper should wrap up the story and avoid finishing on an abrupt cliffhanger. It is vital to include the key takeaways and the lessons learned from the story.

How to Write a Conclusion for a Lab Report

Unlike an essay, a lab report is based on an experiment. This type of paper describes the flow of a particular experiment conducted by a student and its conclusion should reflect on the outcomes of this experiment.

In thinking of how to write a conclusion for a lab, here are the key things you should do to get it right:

• Restate the goals of your experiment
• Describe the methods you used
• Include the results of the experiment and analyze the final data
• End your conclusion with a clear statement on whether or not the experiment was successful (Did you reach the expected results?)

How to Write a Conclusion for a Research Paper

Writing a paper is probably the hardest task of all, even for experienced dissertation writer . Unlike an essay or even a lab report, a research paper is a much longer piece of work that requires a deeper investigation of the problem. Therefore, a conclusion for such a paper should be even more sophisticated and powerful. If you're feeling difficulty writing an essay, you can buy essay on our service.

However, given that a research paper is the second most popular kind of academic paper (after an essay), it is important to know how to conclude a research paper. Even if you have not yet been assigned to do this task, be sure that you will face it soon. So, here are the steps you should follow to create a great conclusion for a research paper:

• Restate the Topic

Start your final paragraph with a quick reminder of what the topic of the piece is about. Keep it one sentence long.

• Revisit the Thesis

Next, you should remind your readers what your thesis statement was. However, do not just copy and paste it from the introductory clause: paraphrase your thesis so that you deliver the same idea but with different words. Keep your paraphrased thesis narrow, specific, and topic-oriented.

• Summarise Your Key Ideas

Just like the case of a regular essay’s conclusion, a research paper’s final paragraph should also include a short summary of all of the key points stated in the body sections. We recommend reading the entire body part a few times to define all of your main arguments and ideas.

• Showcase the Significance of Your Work

In the research paper conclusion, it is vital to highlight the significance of your research problem and state how your solution could be helpful.

• Make Suggestions for Future Studies

Finally, at the end of your conclusion, you should define how your findings will contribute to the development of its particular field of science. Outline the perspectives of further research and, if necessary, explain what is yet to be discovered on the topic.

Then, end your conclusion with a powerful concluding sentence – it can be a rhetorical question, call to action, or another hook that will help you have a strong impact on the audience.

• Answer the Right Questions

To create a top-notch research paper conclusion, be sure to answer the following questions:

• What is the goal of a research paper?
• What are the possible solutions to the research question(s)?
• How can your results be implemented in real life? (Is your research paper helpful to the community?)
• Why is this study important and relevant?

Additionally, here are a few more handy tips to follow:

• Provide clear examples from real life to help readers better understand the further implementation of the stated solutions;
• Keep your conclusion fresh, original, and creative.

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So, What Is a Good Closing Sentence? See The Difference

One of the best ways to learn how to write a good conclusion is to look at several professional essay conclusion examples. In this section of our guide, we are going to look at two different final paragraphs shaped on the basis of the same template, but even so, they are very different – where one is weak and the other is strong. Below, we are going to compare them to help you understand the difference between a good and a bad conclusion.

Here is the template we used: College degrees are in decline. The price of receiving an education does not correlate with the quality of the education received. As a result, graduated students face underemployment, and the worth of college degrees appears to be in serious doubt. However, the potential social and economic benefits of educated students balance out the equation.

Strong Conclusion ‍

People either see college as an opportunity or an inconvenience; therefore, a degree can only hold as much value as its owner’s skillset. The underemployment of graduate students puts the worth of college degrees in serious doubt. Yet, with the multitude of benefits that educated students bring to society and the economy, the equation remains in balance. Perhaps the ordinary person should consider college as a wise financial investment, but only if they stay determined to study and do the hard work.

Why is this example good? There are several key points that prove its effectiveness:

• There is a bold opening statement that encompasses the two contrasting types of students we can see today.
• There are two sentences that recall the thesis statement and cover the key arguments from the body of the essay.
• Finally, the last sentence sums up the key message of the essay and leaves readers with something to think about.

Weak Conclusion

In conclusion, with the poor preparation of students in college and the subsequent underemployment after graduation from college, the worth associated with the college degree appears to be in serious doubt. However, these issues alone may not reasonably conclude beyond a doubt that investing in a college degree is a rewarding venture. When the full benefits that come with education are carefully put into consideration and evaluated, college education for children in any country still has good advantages, and society should continue to advocate for a college education. The ordinary person should consider this a wise financial decision that holds rewards in the end. Apart from the monetary gains associated with a college education, society will greatly benefit from students when they finish college. Their minds are going to be expanded, and their reasoning and decision making will be enhanced.

What makes this example bad? Here are a few points to consider:

• Unlike the first example, this paragraph is long and not specific enough. The author provides plenty of generalized phrases that are not backed up by actual arguments.
• This piece is hard to read and understand and sentences have a confusing structure. Also, there are lots of repetitions and too many uses of the word “college”.
• There is no summary of the key benefits.
• The last two sentences that highlight the value of education contradict with the initial statement.
• Finally, the last sentence doesn’t offer a strong conclusion and gives no thought to ponder upon.
• In the body of your essay, you have hopefully already provided your reader(s) with plenty of information. Therefore, it is not wise to present new arguments or ideas in your conclusion.
• To end your final paragraph right, find a clear and straightforward message that will have the most powerful impact on your audience.
• Don’t use more than one quote in the final clause of your paper – the information from external sources (including quotes) belongs in the body of a paper.
• Be authoritative when writing a conclusion. You should sound confident and convincing to leave a good impression. Sentences like “I’m not an expert, but…” will most likely make you seem less knowledgeable and/or credible.

Good Conclusion Examples

Now that we've learned what a conclusion is and how to write one let's take a look at some essay conclusion examples to strengthen our knowledge.

The ending ironically reveals that all was for nothing. (A short explanation of the thematic effect of the book’s end) Tom says that Miss Watson freed Jim in her final will.Jim told Huck that the dead man on the Island was pap. The entire adventure seemingly evaporated into nothingness. (How this effect was manifested into the minds of thereaders).

All in all, international schools hold the key to building a full future that students can achieve. (Thesis statement simplified) They help students develop their own character by learning from their mistakes, without having to face a dreadful penalty for failure. (Thesis statement elaborated)Although some say that kids emerged “spoiled” with this mentality, the results prove the contrary. (Possible counter-arguments are noted)

In conclusion, public workers should be allowed to strike since it will give them a chance to air their grievances. (Thesis statement) Public workers should be allowed to strike when their rights, safety, and regulations are compromised. The workers will get motivated when they strike, and their demands are met.

In summary, studies reveal some similarities in the nutrient contents between the organic and non-organic food substances. (Starts with similarities) However, others have revealed many considerable differences in the amounts of antioxidants as well as other minerals present in organic and non-organic foods. Generally, organic foods have higher levels of antioxidants than non-organic foods and therefore are more important in the prevention of chronic illnesses.

As time went by, my obsession grew into something bigger than art; (‘As time went by’ signals maturation) it grew into a dream of developing myself for the world. (Showing student’s interest of developing himself for the community) It is a dream of not only seeing the world from a different perspective but also changing the perspective of people who see my work. (Showing student’s determination to create moving pieces of art)

In conclusion, it is evident that technology is an integral part of our lives and without it, we become “lost” since we have increasingly become dependent on its use. (Thesis with main point)

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How to Write an Essay Conclusion

4-minute read

• 1st October 2022

Regardless of what you’re studying, writing essays is probably a significant part of your work as a student . Taking the time to understand how to write each section of an essay (i.e., introduction, body, and conclusion) can make the entire process easier and ensure that you’ll be successful.

Once you’ve put in the hard work of writing a coherent and compelling essay, it can be tempting to quickly throw together a conclusion without the same attention to detail. However, you won’t leave an impactful final impression on your readers without a strong conclusion.

We’ve compiled a few easy steps to help you write a great conclusion for your next essay . Watch our video, or check out our guide below to learn more!

1. Return to Your Thesis

Similar to how an introduction should capture your reader’s interest and present your argument, a conclusion should show why your argument matters and leave the reader with further curiosity about the topic.

To do this, you should begin by reminding the reader of your thesis statement. While you can use similar language and keywords when referring to your thesis, avoid copying it from the introduction and pasting it into your conclusion.

Try varying your vocabulary and sentence structure and presenting your thesis in a way that demonstrates how your argument has evolved throughout your essay.

2. Review Your Main Points

In addition to revisiting your thesis statement, you should review the main points you presented in your essay to support your argument.

However, a conclusion isn’t simply a summary of your essay . Rather, you should further examine your main points and demonstrate how each is connected.

Try to discuss these points concisely, in just a few sentences, in preparation for demonstrating how they fit in to the bigger picture of the topic.

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3. Show the Significance of Your Essay

Next, it’s time to think about the topic of your essay beyond the scope of your argument. It’s helpful to keep the question “so what?” in mind when you’re doing this. The goal is to demonstrate why your argument matters.

If you need some ideas about what to discuss to show the significance of your essay, consider the following:

• What do your findings contribute to the current understanding of the topic?
• Did your findings raise new questions that would benefit from future research?
• Can you offer practical suggestions for future research or make predictions about the future of the field/topic?
• Are there other contexts, topics, or a broader debate that your ideas can be applied to?

While writing your essay, it can be helpful to keep a list of ideas or insights that you develop about the implications of your work so that you can refer back to it when you write the conclusion.

Making these kinds of connections will leave a memorable impression on the reader and inspire their interest in the topic you’ve written about.

4. Avoid Some Common Mistakes

To ensure you’ve written a strong conclusion that doesn’t leave your reader confused or lacking confidence in your work, avoid:

• Presenting new evidence: Don’t introduce new information or a new argument, as it can distract from your main topic, confuse your reader, and suggest that your essay isn’t organized.
• Undermining your argument: Don’t use statements such as “I’m not an expert,” “I feel,” or “I think,” as lacking confidence in your work will weaken your argument.
• Using generic statements: Don’t use generic concluding statements such as “In summary,” “To sum up,” or “In conclusion,” which are redundant since the reader will be able to see that they’ve reached the end of your essay.

Finally, don’t make the mistake of forgetting to proofread your essay ! Mistakes can be difficult to catch in your own writing, but they can detract from your writing.

Our expert editors can ensure that your essay is clear, concise, and free of spelling and grammar errors. Find out more by submitting a free trial document today!

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Essay Conclusion – How To Write It With Examples

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An essay conclusion is the culmination of any well-crafted academic essay , a vital component. Your response to the query should be repeated, and the main arguments briefly outlined. No new points or new knowledge are shared in it. Even seasoned writers sometimes grapple with concluding their thoughts effectively. In this article, you’ll get to understand what an essay conclusion is and what should not be included, as well as expound on how the essay conclusion structure ought to be.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• 1 Essay conclusion in a nutshell
• 2 Definition: Essay conclusion
• 3 Structure
• 4 What not to include
• 5 Good examples

Essay conclusion in a nutshell

An essay conclusion is like the final wrap-up or summary of your essay . It reminds the reader of your main points and often leaves them with something to think about. Imagine telling a friend quickly what your essay was about and why it matters; that’s your conclusion !

Definition: Essay conclusion

An essay conclusion is the last paragraph of your academic writing . It summarizes your hypothesis and influences, research, and claims. It allows readers to understand why your academic essay should be of importance to them. Furthermore, it closes the article and one more time reaffirms the key points. This is the time to impress and illustrate why the paper matters to readers. In other words, the question “So what?” should be resolved by your academic essay conclusion. An essay conclusion should include the following elements:

• Restate the thesis in a new way
• Summarize the main points of the essay
• Connect the points to show the overall significance
• Offer a final thought or implication

Essay topic: The importance of reading in the digital age

In an era dominated by screens and digital interactions, the age-old practice of reading remains more crucial than ever. Revisiting our primary thesis, it’s evident that reading fosters critical thinking, broadens perspectives, and nurtures empathy, qualities that are essential in today’s rapidly changing world. Despite the numerous advantages of technology, literature serves as a foundation for understanding culture, history, and personal introspection. As we journey further into the digital age, let us not forsake the printed page, but rather, embrace it as a counterbalance, reminding us of the depth of human thought and the timeless value of storytelling. In doing so, we not only preserve the richness of our past, but also ensure a more thoughtful, understanding future.

The essay conclusion is a message to the reader that your writing has been completed. The reader then has a strong sense that your essay aims have been accomplished. An essay conclusion’s underlying framework depicts three key fields: a thesis, a description of key theories, and final thoughts, like a debate on a future emphasis (recommendation, prediction, solution). Structuring academic essays is not easy, so here-below, we look at the main components of a conclusion.

Step 1: Restate the thesis

This step revisits the central argument or claim of the essay. However, it’s essential to avoid simply copying the thesis verbatim from the introduction. Instead, rephrase it in a way that reaffirms its importance and the evidence you’ve provided to support it throughout the essay.

To transition in an essay conclusion, avoid using commonly used transition words like “in summary” or “in conclusion”. Instead, opt for variations like “in essence”, “all in all”, “altogether”, “briefly”, “finally”, and “in short”.

Step 2: Summarize main points

Here, the major arguments, evidence, or findings presented in the essay body are briefly recapped. This synthesis serves as a reminder of the logical progression of the essay and reinforces the support for the thesis.

The study results show how essential findings for strategy, implementation, concept, and future research can be. Your findings are relevant for strategy, experience, or philosophy, and are the research consequences.

Step 3: Final thoughts

This is the concluding remark that ties everything together, offering broader implications, future predictions, or a call to action. It’s where you can leave the reader with a thought-provoking idea or a sense of the essay’s broader relevance. The end of a research paper should have an effect on the reader, as does the introduction.

The thesis closing statement intends to display your new knowledge and clearly state the answer to the main investigative question. It must be a brief and appealing conclusion. You want the reader to understand exactly how your research has progressed or what your significant discovery has been.

What not to include

Fundamentally, the essay conclusion should restate the solid thesis statement you wrote and emphasize the main points of your study. This would help demonstrate to the reading audience why your work is important and how it helps in this area. However, you should avoid the following when writing a conclusion:

• New information or arguments Do not introduce new points or evidence.
• Apologies Avoid phrases like “I may not be an expert” or “This is just my opinion”. You should be confident in the points you’ve made.
• Overused phrases Try not to use clichés such as “In conclusion,” “In summary,” or “As previously stated”.
• Repeating the thesis verbatim Restate your thesis, but don’t copy and paste it. Rephrase it to give a sense of closure.
• Being vague Your conclusion should be clear and concise, reinforcing the main points of your essay.
• Off-topic tangents Everything in your conclusion should directly relate to your thesis and main points.
• Overwhelming emotion While passion about a topic is great, avoid excessive emotional appeals that might detract from your main points or make your conclusion seem unbalanced.

Note: An essay conclusion should leave your reader with a clear understanding of your argument and a sense of closure. It’s your final opportunity to emphasize the importance of your topic and your stance.

Good examples

First, let’s consider a persuasive essay with the topic: “The benefits of adopting a pet from a shelter”.

In the grand tapestry of life, our choices often define our legacy. Choosing to adopt a pet from a shelter not only bestows a second chance upon a deserving animal but also takes a stand against unethical breeding practices. As we’ve seen, shelter pets are loving, adaptable, and often come with enriching backstories that enhance our lives. By opening our homes and hearts to them, we become champions of compassion and agents of change. So, the next time you consider adding a furry member to your family, remember: adoption is not just a choice—it’s a commitment to kindness.

The second essay example will be about the topic “The impact of technology on personal interactions”.

The digital age has undeniably reshaped the fabric of our social interactions. While technology has bridged distances and brought convenience, it has also inadvertently erected walls of virtual detachment in personal relationships. As illustrated, the convenience of texts regularly overshadows the warmth of voice calls, and virtual reactions sometimes replace genuine emotional responses. As we navigate this ever-evolving landscape, it’s imperative to strike a balance: leveraging technology to enhance, not replace, the profound human connections that define our existence. After all, the essence of humanity isn’t in the devices we hold, but in the genuine moments we share.

What should be included in an essay conclusion?

An essay conclusion should:

• Restate the thesis in a rephrased manner.
• Summarize the main points of the essay.
• Offer final thoughts or implications based on the discussion.

How do you start an essay conclusion?

Paraphrasing the thesis is probably the most straightforward way to start a conclusion. The easiest way to begin a conclusion is to clearly reaffirm the argument of the study. Moreover, check your work or repeat critical points. The next move is to look at the paper’s key arguments. You can also explain the value of your work, as well as offer a message to the reader that they can take home with them.

How do you write a conclusion for a persuasive essay?

To write a conclusion for a persuasive essay , you should follow the next three steps.

• Restate your main argument or thesis.
• Summarize key points made in the essay.
• End with a strong statement or call to action that reinforces your position.

What is the purpose of an essay conclusion?

The purpose of the academic essay conclusion of your paper is to reaffirm the main argument. It prompts the reader of your argument’s qualities and repeats the most relevant facts supporting this claim(s).

Is it appropriate to end an essay conclusion with a question?

In a piece of literature, the closing paragraphs are quite significant. Both fiction or non-fiction, the central premise, and relevant facts are summed up in a conclusion. Ending a question is an outstanding way to keep the reader curious to know, well after the reading is finished.

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Table of Contents

Collaboration, information literacy, writing process, conclusions – how to write compelling conclusions.

• © 2023 by Jennifer Janechek - IBM Quantum

Conclusions generally address these issues:

• How can you restate your ideas concisely and in a new way?
• What have you left your reader to think about at the end of your paper?
• How does your paper answer the “so what?” question?

As the last part of the paper, conclusions often get the short shrift. We instructors know (not that we condone it)—many students devote a lot less attention to the writing of the conclusion. Some students might even finish their conclusion thirty minutes before they have to turn in their papers. But even if you’re practicing desperation writing, don’t neglect your conclusion; it’s a very integral part of your paper.

Think about it: Why would you spend so much time writing your introductory material and your body paragraphs and then kill the paper by leaving your reader with a dud for a conclusion? Rather than simply trailing off at the end, it’s important to learn to construct a compelling conclusion—one that both reiterates your ideas and leaves your reader with something to think about.

How do I reiterate my main points?

In the first part of the conclusion, you should spend a brief amount of time summarizing what you’ve covered in your paper. This reiteration should not merely be a restatement of your thesis or a collection of your topic sentences but should be a condensed version of your argument, topic, and/or purpose.

Let’s take a look at an example reiteration from a paper about offshore drilling:

Ideally, a ban on all offshore drilling is the answer to the devastating and culminating environmental concerns that result when oil spills occur. Given the catastrophic history of three major oil spills, the environmental and economic consequences of offshore drilling should now be obvious.

Now, let’s return to the thesis statement in this paper so we can see if it differs from the conclusion:

As a nation, we should reevaluate all forms of offshore drilling, but deep water offshore oil drilling, specifically, should be banned until the technology to stop and clean up oil spills catches up with our drilling technology. Though some may argue that offshore drilling provides economic advantages and would lessen our dependence on foreign oil, the environmental and economic consequences of an oil spill are so drastic that they far outweigh the advantages.

The author has already discussed environmental/economic concerns with oil drilling. In the above example, the author provides an overview of the paper in the second sentence of the conclusion, recapping the main points and reminding the readers that they should now be willing to acknowledge this position as viable.

Though you may not always want to take this aggressive of an approach (i.e., saying something should be obvious to the reader), the key is to summarize your main ideas without “plagiarizing” by repeating yourself word for word. Instead, you may take the approach of saying, “The readers can now see, given the catastrophic history of three major oil spills, the environmental and economic consequences of oil drilling.”

Can you give me a real-life example of a conclusion?

Think of conclusions this way: You are watching a movie, which has just reached the critical plot point (the murderer will be revealed, the couple will finally kiss, the victim will be rescued, etc.), when someone else enters the room. This person has no idea what is happening in the movie. They might lean over to ask, “What’s going on?” You now have to condense the entire plot in a way that makes sense, so the person will not have to ask any other questions, but quickly, so that you don’t miss any more of the movie.

Your conclusion in a paper works in a similar way. When you write your conclusion, imagine that a person has just showed up in time to hear the last paragraph. What does that reader need to know in order to get the gist of your paper? You cannot go over the entire argument again because the rest of your readers have actually been present and listening the whole time. They don’t need to hear the details again. Writing a compelling conclusion usually relies on the balance between two needs: give enough detail to cover your point, but be brief enough to make it obvious that this is the end of the paper.

Remember that reiteration is not restatement. Summarize your paper in one to two sentences (or even three or four, depending on the length of the paper), and then move on to answering the “So what?” question.

How can I answer the “So what?” question?

The bulk of your conclusion should answer the “So what?” question. Have you ever had an instructor write “So what?” at the end of your paper? This is not meant to offend but rather to remind you to show readers the significance of your argument. Readers do not need or want an entire paragraph of summary, so you should craft some new tidbit of interesting information that serves as an extension of your original ideas.

There are a variety of ways that you can answer the “So what?” question. The following are just a few types of such “endnotes”:

The Call to Action

The call to action can be used at the end of a variety of papers, but it works best for persuasive papers. Persuasive papers include social action papers and Rogerian argument essays, which begin with a problem and move toward a solution that serves as the author’s thesis. Any time your purpose in writing is to change your readers’ minds or you want to get your readers to do something, the call to action is the way to go. The call to action asks your readers, after having progressed through a compelling and coherent argument, to do something or believe a certain way.

Following the reiteration of the essay’s argument, here is an example call to action:

We have advanced technology that allows deepwater offshore drilling, but we lack the similarly advanced technology that would manage these spills effectively. As such, until cleanup and prevention technology are available, we gatekeepers of our coastal shores and defenders of marine wildlife should ban offshore drilling, or, at the very least, demand a moratorium on all offshore oil drilling.

This call to action requests that the readers consider a ban on offshore drilling. Remember, you need to identify your audience before you begin writing. Whether the author wants readers to actually enact the ban or just to come to this side of the argument, the conclusion asks readers to do or believe something new based upon the information they just received.

The Contextualization

The contextualization places the author’s local argument, topic, or purpose in a more global context so that readers can see the larger purpose for the piece or where the piece fits into a larger conversation. Writers do research for papers in part so they can enter into specific conversations, and they provide their readers with a contextualization in the conclusion to acknowledge the broader dialogue that contains that smaller conversation.

For instance, if we were to return to the paper on offshore drilling, rather than proposing a ban (a call to action), we might provide the reader with a contextualization:

We have advanced technology that allows deepwater offshore drilling, but we lack the advanced technology that would manage these spills effectively. Thus, one can see the need to place environmental concerns at the forefront of the political arena. Many politicians have already done so, including Senator Doe and Congresswoman Smith.

Rather than asking readers to do or believe something, this conclusion answers the “So what?” question by showing why this specific conversation about offshore drilling matters in the larger conversation about politics and environmentalism.

The twist leaves readers with a contrasting idea to consider. For instance, to continue the offshore drilling paper, the author might provide readers with a twist in the last few lines of the conclusion:

While offshore drilling is certainly an important issue today, it is only a small part of the greater problem of environmental abuse. Until we are ready to address global issues, even a moratorium on offshore drilling will only delay the inevitable destruction of the environment.

While this contrasting idea does not negate the writer’s original argument, it does present an alternative contrasting idea to weigh against the original argument. The twist is similar to a cliffhanger, as it is intended to leave readers saying, “Hmm…”

Suggest Possibilities for Future Research

This approach to answering “So what?” is best for projects that might be developed into larger, ongoing projects later or to suggest possibilities for future research someone else who might be interested in that topic could explore. This approach involves pinpointing various directions which your research might take if someone were to extend the ideas included in your paper. Research is a conversation, so it’s important to consider how your piece fits into this conversation and how others might use it in their own conversations.

For example, to suggest possibilities for future research based on the paper on offshore drilling, the conclusion might end with something like this:

I have just explored the economic and environmental repercussions of offshore drilling based on the examples we have of three major oil spills over the past thirty years. Future research might uncover more economic and environmental consequences of offshore drilling, consequences that will become clearer as the effects of the BP oil spill become more pronounced and as more time passes.

Suggesting opportunities for future research involves the reader in the paper, just like the call to action. Readers may be inspired by your brilliant ideas to use your piece as a jumping-off point!

Whether you use a call to action, a twist, a contextualization, or a suggestion of future possibilities for research, it’s important to answer the “So what?” question to keep readers interested in your topic until the very end of the paper. And, perhaps more importantly, leaving your readers with something to consider makes it more likely that they will remember your piece of writing.

Revise your own argument by using the following questions to guide you:

• What do you want readers to take away from your discussion?
• What are the main points you made, why should readers care, and what ideas should they take away?

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How to Write an Expository Essay | Structure, Tips & Examples

Published on July 14, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

“Expository” means “intended to explain or describe something.” An expository essay provides a clear, focused explanation of a particular topic, process, or set of ideas. It doesn’t set out to prove a point, just to give a balanced view of its subject matter.

Expository essays are usually short assignments intended to test your composition skills or your understanding of a subject. They tend to involve less research and original arguments than argumentative essays .

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Table of contents

When should you write an expository essay, how to approach an expository essay, introducing your essay, writing the body paragraphs, concluding your essay, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about expository essays.

In school and university, you might have to write expository essays as in-class exercises, exam questions, or coursework assignments.

Sometimes it won’t be directly stated that the assignment is an expository essay, but there are certain keywords that imply expository writing is required. Consider the prompts below.

The word “explain” here is the clue: An essay responding to this prompt should provide an explanation of this historical process—not necessarily an original argument about it.

Sometimes you’ll be asked to define a particular term or concept. This means more than just copying down the dictionary definition; you’ll be expected to explore different ideas surrounding the term, as this prompt emphasizes.

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An expository essay should take an objective approach: It isn’t about your personal opinions or experiences. Instead, your goal is to provide an informative and balanced explanation of your topic. Avoid using the first or second person (“I” or “you”).

The structure of your expository essay will vary according to the scope of your assignment and the demands of your topic. It’s worthwhile to plan out your structure before you start, using an essay outline .

A common structure for a short expository essay consists of five paragraphs: An introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Like all essays, an expository essay begins with an introduction . This serves to hook the reader’s interest, briefly introduce your topic, and provide a thesis statement summarizing what you’re going to say about it.

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how a typical introduction works.

In many ways, the invention of the printing press marked the end of the Middle Ages. The medieval period in Europe is often remembered as a time of intellectual and political stagnation. Prior to the Renaissance, the average person had very limited access to books and was unlikely to be literate. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century allowed for much less restricted circulation of information in Europe, paving the way for the Reformation.

The body of your essay is where you cover your topic in depth. It often consists of three paragraphs, but may be more for a longer essay. This is where you present the details of the process, idea or topic you’re explaining.

It’s important to make sure each paragraph covers its own clearly defined topic, introduced with a topic sentence . Different topics (all related to the overall subject matter of the essay) should be presented in a logical order, with clear transitions between paragraphs.

Hover over different parts of the example paragraph below to see how a body paragraph is constructed.

The invention of the printing press in 1440 changed this situation dramatically. Johannes Gutenberg, who had worked as a goldsmith, used his knowledge of metals in the design of the press. He made his type from an alloy of lead, tin, and antimony, whose durability allowed for the reliable production of high-quality books. This new technology allowed texts to be reproduced and disseminated on a much larger scale than was previously possible. The Gutenberg Bible appeared in the 1450s, and a large number of printing presses sprang up across the continent in the following decades. Gutenberg’s invention rapidly transformed cultural production in Europe; among other things, it would lead to the Protestant Reformation.

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The conclusion of an expository essay serves to summarize the topic under discussion. It should not present any new information or evidence, but should instead focus on reinforcing the points made so far. Essentially, your conclusion is there to round off the essay in an engaging way.

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how a conclusion works.

The invention of the printing press was important not only in terms of its immediate cultural and economic effects, but also in terms of its major impact on politics and religion across Europe. In the century following the invention of the printing press, the relatively stationary intellectual atmosphere of the Middle Ages gave way to the social upheavals of the Reformation and the Renaissance. A single technological innovation had contributed to the total reshaping of the continent.

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An expository essay is a broad form that varies in length according to the scope of the assignment.

Expository essays are often assigned as a writing exercise or as part of an exam, in which case a five-paragraph essay of around 800 words may be appropriate.

You’ll usually be given guidelines regarding length; if you’re not sure, ask.

An expository essay is a common assignment in high-school and university composition classes. It might be assigned as coursework, in class, or as part of an exam.

Sometimes you might not be told explicitly to write an expository essay. Look out for prompts containing keywords like “explain” and “define.” An expository essay is usually the right response to these prompts.

An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

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What Is The Purpose Of The Conclusion In A Persuasive Essay?

In a student’s academic journey, mastering the art of persuasive essays stands as a crucial milestone. These essays wield the power to sway opinions, influence thoughts, and ignite critical thinking. At its core, a persuasive essay aims to present a coherent argument backed by compelling evidence, structured within an introduction, body paragraphs, and a pivotal component—the conclusion.

What exactly defines a persuasive essay? It’s a form of writing where the author aims to persuade readers to adopt a particular viewpoint or take a specific action. Amidst its structured format lies the significance of a robust conclusion. This concluding segment serves as the last chance to leave a resonating impact on the audience, reinforcing the essay’s central argument.

In this blog, we delve into the intricacies of the conclusion in a persuasive essay. From its purpose and essential components to effective strategies and common pitfalls to avoid, we’ll decipher the significance of this conclusive section. Stay tuned to know what is the purpose of the conclusion in a persuasive essay.

What Is A Persuasive Essay?

Table of Contents

A persuasive essay is like a map guiding others to understand your thoughts. It’s a special type of writing where you try to convince people to see things your way. Imagine you’re a detective, presenting evidence to solve a case—except here, your evidence helps prove your point or idea.

This kind of essay has a clear purpose: to persuade or influence readers’ opinions. You use words to build a strong argument, like constructing a sturdy building. First, you undoubtedly introduce your idea, then use facts, and reasoning to support it. Finally, you wrap it up neatly, leaving a lasting impression on your audience.

Structure Of  Persuasive Essay 

A persuasive essay follows a specific structure to convey its argument effectively. It generally comprises an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Importance Of A Strong Conclusion In A Persuasive Essay

Here are some importance of a strong conclusion in a persuasive essay: 

1. Reinforces Main Points

A strong conclusion reiterates the key arguments made throughout the essay. By summarizing these points, it reminds the reader of the essay’s central ideas, leaving a lasting impression.

2. Leaves a Lasting Impression

An impactful conclusion resonates with the reader, making the essay memorable. It’s the final opportunity to leave a strong, persuasive message that lingers in the audience’s mind.

3. Encourages Action or Thought

A compelling conclusion prompts readers to consider the writer’s viewpoint or take a specific action. It inspires reflection or motivates them to embrace the presented ideas.

4. Provides Closure

A well-crafted conclusion offers a sense of closure to the essay. It ties together loose ends, giving the audience a feeling of completeness and finality to the discussion.

5. Strengthens Persuasive Effect

The conclusion acts as the ultimate reinforcement of the essay’s persuasive nature. It consolidates the writer’s stance and convinces the audience of the validity of the argument presented.

The conclusion in a persuasive essay serves several important purposes. This represents the author’s last chance to make a lasting impact and reaffirm the essay’s major ideas. Additionally, the conclusion aims to provide closure to the essay and guide the reader toward a specific action or belief. Let’s explore What Is The Purpose Of The Conclusion In A Persuasive Essay in more detail.

Purpose 1: Leave a Lasting Impression

One of the primary purposes of the conclusion in a persuasive essay is to leave a lasting impression on the reader. The essay’s conclusion should clearly and persuasively restate the key points and supporting data from the entire essay. By restating the key points and reinforcing the main ideas, the writer aims to make a strong final statement that resonates with the reader.

Purpose 2: Provide Closure

Another purpose of the conclusion is to provide closure to the essay. It helps tie together all the different ideas and arguments presented in the body paragraphs. By summarizing the key ideas and illuminating how they relate to the main thesis statement, the conclusion should give the essay a sense of closure. This closure helps the reader understand the significance of the arguments and their relevance to the topic at hand.

Purpose 3: Guide the Reader

In addition to leaving a lasting impression and providing closure, the conclusion in a persuasive essay aims to guide the reader toward a specific action or belief. The writer may use the conclusion to make a final appeal to the reader’s emotions, values, or logic, encouraging them to take a particular course of action or adopt a certain viewpoint. This persuasive element in the conclusion helps to reinforce the overall purpose of the essay and encourages the reader to consider the writer’s perspective

Purpose 4: Call to Action

One purpose of the conclusion in a persuasive essay is to include a call to action. This is a declaration or recommendation meant to nudge the reader toward a particular course of action associated with the subject matter covered in the essay. Depending on the goal of the essay, the call to action may take several forms, but its main objective is to inspire the reader to take a meaningful action or response.

Purpose 5: Appeal to Ethos, Pathos, or Logos

The conclusion in a persuasive essay often includes a final appeal to ethos, pathos, or logos . Pathos speaks to the reader’s emotions, logos appeals to reason and logic, and ethos relates to the writer’s authority or credibility. By incorporating one or more of these persuasive appeals in the conclusion, the writer aims to strengthen their argument and convince the reader of their viewpoint.

Purpose 6: Address Counterarguments

Another purpose of the conclusion in a persuasive essay is to address potential counterarguments or opposing viewpoints. By acknowledging and refuting counterarguments, the writer demonstrates a thorough understanding of the topic and strengthens their own argument. This helps to bolster the overall persuasiveness of the essay and leaves the reader with a sense of confidence in the writer’s position .

Purpose 7: Provide a Memorable Ending

The conclusion also serves the purpose of providing a memorable ending to the essay. It is an opportunity for the writer to leave the reader with a powerful and thought-provoking statement that resonates long after they have finished reading. A memorable ending can help reinforce the main message of the essay and leave a lasting impression on the reader.

Purpose 8: Reiterate the Thesis Statement

In the conclusion of a persuasive essay, it is common to reiterate the thesis statement. Restating the thesis helps remind the reader of the main argument and reinforces the writer’s position. This repetition can be done in a way that emphasizes the importance and relevance of the thesis, leaving a strong final impression on the reader.

Purpose 9: Summarize Key Points

Lastly, the conclusion serves the purpose of summarizing the key points discussed throughout the essay. By briefly recapping the main arguments and evidence presented, the writer ensures that the reader has a clear understanding of the main ideas. This summary allows the reader to reflect on the information presented and reinforces the overall persuasive message of the essay 

Strategies For Writing An Effective Conclusion

Here are some strategies for writing an effective conclusion:

Strategy 1: Summarize Main Points

A useful technique for crafting a conclusion is to enumerate the primary ideas discussed in your essay. Reiterate the key arguments and evidence presented in the body paragraphs. This helps reinforce the central message of your essay and reminds the reader of the most compelling reasons supporting your viewpoint.

Strategy 2: End with a Call to Action

Another strategy involves ending your conclusion with a call to action. Encourage your reader to take specific steps or consider adopting your perspective. This prompts them to think about the implications of your arguments and motivates them to act or think differently based on what you’ve presented.

Strategy 3: Provide a Resolution or Solution

Consider offering a resolution or solution related to the issue discussed in your essay. If applicable, propose practical ways to address the problem based on the arguments you’ve presented. Providing a solution adds a sense of closure and shows the practical implications of your ideas.

Strategy 4: End with a Memorable Statement

Ending your conclusion with a powerful or thought-provoking statement can leave a lasting impression on the reader. Consider crafting a closing line that encapsulates the essence of your essay or leaves the reader with something impactful to ponder, ensuring they remember your essay’s key points.

Strategy 5: Emphasize the Significance

Lastly, emphasize the broader significance of your topic in the conclusion. Explain why your arguments matter beyond the scope of your essay. Highlight the relevance and real-world implications of your ideas to underscore their importance and encourage the reader to consider their broader implications.

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Essential Things That Must Be In Persuasive Essay Conclusion

In a persuasive essay conclusion, it’s crucial to tie together the arguments and leave a lasting impact on the reader. This section should summarize the main points while reinforcing the thesis and encouraging action or reflection.

• Restate the Thesis: To help the reader remember the goal of the essay, summarize the main points or thesis statement.
• Summarize Important Points : Recap the essential arguments and evidence presented in the body paragraphs to reinforce their significance.
• Call to Action or Reflection: This section should encourage the reader to take action, reconsider their viewpoint, or contemplate the implications of the essay’s arguments.
• Provide Closure: Offer a sense of closure by reiterating the significance of the topic and its broader implications beyond the essay’s scope.
• Memorable Closing Statement: Conclude with a strong or interesting statement that reinforces the main idea of the essay and leaves the reader with a lasting impression.

Common Mistakes to Avoid While Writing Conclusion In A Persuasive Essay

When crafting the conclusion of a persuasive essay, several common mistakes should be avoided to ensure its effectiveness. It’s crucial to steer clear of errors that could weaken the impact or clarity of your final thoughts.

• Introducing New Information: The conclusion should not introduce new arguments or evidence. Instead, it should summarize the main points without adding new information that may confuse the reader.
• Being Repetitive: While summarizing key points is essential, avoid excessively repeating information already discussed in the body paragraphs. Focus on reiterating without being redundant.
• Undermining the Thesis: Don’t weaken the thesis statement or main argument. Ensure that the conclusion reinforces the strength of your stance rather than diluting it.
• Lacking a Clear Call to Action or Resolution: Failure to provide a clear call to action or resolution can leave the reader without a sense of direction or purpose. Avoid vague or ambiguous statements.
• Neglecting to Leave a Lasting Impression: The conclusion is your final opportunity to impact the reader. Avoid ending abruptly or without a memorable closing statement that reinforces the essay’s main message.

In a persuasive essay is crucial. It summarizes key points, reinforces the thesis, and urges action. It emphasizes the essay’s importance and avoids mistakes like repetition or introducing new information. 

Moreover, a strong conclusion leaves a lasting impression, guiding readers towards the writer’s viewpoint or prompting reflection. It’s a powerful tool that persuasively wraps up the essay, leaving a resonating message for readers to consider.

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What is an Essay?

10 May, 2020

11 minutes read

Author:  Tomas White

Well, beyond a jumble of words usually around 2,000 words or so - what is an essay, exactly? Whether you’re taking English, sociology, history, biology, art, or a speech class, it’s likely you’ll have to write an essay or two. So how is an essay different than a research paper or a review? Let’s find out!

Defining the Term – What is an Essay?

The essay is a written piece that is designed to present an idea, propose an argument, express the emotion or initiate debate. It is a tool that is used to present writer’s ideas in a non-fictional way. Multiple applications of this type of writing go way beyond, providing political manifestos and art criticism as well as personal observations and reflections of the author.

An essay can be as short as 500 words, it can also be 5000 words or more.  However, most essays fall somewhere around 1000 to 3000 words ; this word range provides the writer enough space to thoroughly develop an argument and work to convince the reader of the author’s perspective regarding a particular issue.  The topics of essays are boundless: they can range from the best form of government to the benefits of eating peppermint leaves daily. As a professional provider of custom writing, our service has helped thousands of customers to turn in essays in various forms and disciplines.

Origins of the Essay

Over the course of more than six centuries essays were used to question assumptions, argue trivial opinions and to initiate global discussions. Let’s have a closer look into historical progress and various applications of this literary phenomenon to find out exactly what it is.

Today’s modern word “essay” can trace its roots back to the French “essayer” which translates closely to mean “to attempt” .  This is an apt name for this writing form because the essay’s ultimate purpose is to attempt to convince the audience of something.  An essay’s topic can range broadly and include everything from the best of Shakespeare’s plays to the joys of April.

The essay comes in many shapes and sizes; it can focus on a personal experience or a purely academic exploration of a topic.  Essays are classified as a subjective writing form because while they include expository elements, they can rely on personal narratives to support the writer’s viewpoint.  The essay genre includes a diverse array of academic writings ranging from literary criticism to meditations on the natural world.  Most typically, the essay exists as a shorter writing form; essays are rarely the length of a novel.  However, several historic examples, such as John Locke’s seminal work “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” just shows that a well-organized essay can be as long as a novel.

The Essay in Literature

The essay enjoys a long and renowned history in literature.  They first began gaining in popularity in the early 16 th century, and their popularity has continued today both with original writers and ghost writers.  Many readers prefer this short form in which the writer seems to speak directly to the reader, presenting a particular claim and working to defend it through a variety of means.  Not sure if you’ve ever read a great essay? You wouldn’t believe how many pieces of literature are actually nothing less than essays, or evolved into more complex structures from the essay. Check out this list of literary favorites:

• The Book of My Lives by Aleksandar Hemon
• Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin
• Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag
• High-Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now and Never by Barbara Kingsolver
• Slouching Toward Bethlehem by Joan Didion
• Naked by David Sedaris
• Walden; or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau

Pretty much as long as writers have had something to say, they’ve created essays to communicate their viewpoint on pretty much any topic you can think of!

The Essay in Academics

Not only are students required to read a variety of essays during their academic education, but they will likely be required to write several different kinds of essays throughout their scholastic career.  Don’t love to write?  Then consider working with a ghost essay writer !  While all essays require an introduction, body paragraphs in support of the argumentative thesis statement, and a conclusion, academic essays can take several different formats in the way they approach a topic.  Common essays required in high school, college, and post-graduate classes include:

Five paragraph essay

This is the most common type of a formal essay. The type of paper that students are usually exposed to when they first hear about the concept of the essay itself. It follows easy outline structure – an opening introduction paragraph; three body paragraphs to expand the thesis; and conclusion to sum it up.

Argumentative essay

These essays are commonly assigned to explore a controversial issue.  The goal is to identify the major positions on either side and work to support the side the writer agrees with while refuting the opposing side’s potential arguments.

Compare and Contrast essay

This essay compares two items, such as two poems, and works to identify similarities and differences, discussing the strength and weaknesses of each.  This essay can focus on more than just two items, however.  The point of this essay is to reveal new connections the reader may not have considered previously.

Definition essay

This essay has a sole purpose – defining a term or a concept in as much detail as possible. Sounds pretty simple, right? Well, not quite. The most important part of the process is picking up the word. Before zooming it up under the microscope, make sure to choose something roomy so you can define it under multiple angles. The definition essay outline will reflect those angles and scopes.

Descriptive essay

Perhaps the most fun to write, this essay focuses on describing its subject using all five of the senses.  The writer aims to fully describe the topic; for example, a descriptive essay could aim to describe the ocean to someone who’s never seen it or the job of a teacher.  Descriptive essays rely heavily on detail and the paragraphs can be organized by sense.

Illustration essay

The purpose of this essay is to describe an idea, occasion or a concept with the help of clear and vocal examples. “Illustration” itself is handled in the body paragraphs section. Each of the statements, presented in the essay needs to be supported with several examples. Illustration essay helps the author to connect with his audience by breaking the barriers with real-life examples – clear and indisputable.

Informative Essay

Being one the basic essay types, the informative essay is as easy as it sounds from a technical standpoint. High school is where students usually encounter with informative essay first time. The purpose of this paper is to describe an idea, concept or any other abstract subject with the help of proper research and a generous amount of storytelling.

Narrative essay

This type of essay focuses on describing a certain event or experience, most often chronologically.  It could be a historic event or an ordinary day or month in a regular person’s life. Narrative essay proclaims a free approach to writing it, therefore it does not always require conventional attributes, like the outline. The narrative itself typically unfolds through a personal lens, and is thus considered to be a subjective form of writing.

Persuasive essay

The purpose of the persuasive essay is to provide the audience with a 360-view on the concept idea or certain topic – to persuade the reader to adopt a certain viewpoint. The viewpoints can range widely from why visiting the dentist is important to why dogs make the best pets to why blue is the best color.  Strong, persuasive language is a defining characteristic of this essay type.

The Essay in Art

Several other artistic mediums have adopted the essay as a means of communicating with their audience.  In the visual arts, such as painting or sculpting, the rough sketches of the final product are sometimes deemed essays.  Likewise, directors may opt to create a film essay which is similar to a documentary in that it offers a personal reflection on a relevant issue.  Finally, photographers often create photographic essays in which they use a series of photographs to tell a story, similar to a narrative or a descriptive essay.

Drawing the line – question answered

“What is an Essay?” is quite a polarizing question. On one hand, it can easily be answered in a couple of words. On the other, it is surely the most profound and self-established type of content there ever was. Going back through the history of the last five-six centuries helps us understand where did it come from and how it is being applied ever since.

If you must write an essay, follow these five important steps to works towards earning the “A” you want:

• Understand and review the kind of essay you must write
• Brainstorm your argument
• Find research from reliable sources to support your perspective
• Cite all sources parenthetically within the paper and on the Works Cited page
• Follow all grammatical rules

Generally speaking, when you must write any type of essay, start sooner rather than later!  Don’t procrastinate – give yourself time to develop your perspective and work on crafting a unique and original approach to the topic.  Remember: it’s always a good idea to have another set of eyes (or three) look over your essay before handing in the final draft to your teacher or professor.  Don’t trust your fellow classmates?  Consider hiring an editor or a ghostwriter to help out!

If you are still unsure on whether you can cope with your task – you are in the right place to get help. HandMadeWriting is the perfect answer to the question “Who can write my essay?”

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Tips for Writing an Effective Application Essay

How to Write an Effective Essay

Writing an essay for college admission gives you a chance to use your authentic voice and show your personality. It's an excellent opportunity to personalize your application beyond your academic credentials, and a well-written essay can have a positive influence come decision time.

Want to know how to draft an essay for your college application ? Here are some tips to keep in mind when writing.

Tips for Essay Writing

A typical college application essay, also known as a personal statement, is 400-600 words. Although that may seem short, writing about yourself can be challenging. It's not something you want to rush or put off at the last moment. Think of it as a critical piece of the application process. Follow these tips to write an impactful essay that can work in your favor.

1. Start Early.

Few people write well under pressure. Try to complete your first draft a few weeks before you have to turn it in. Many advisers recommend starting as early as the summer before your senior year in high school. That way, you have ample time to think about the prompt and craft the best personal statement possible.

You don't have to work on your essay every day, but you'll want to give yourself time to revise and edit. You may discover that you want to change your topic or think of a better way to frame it. Either way, the sooner you start, the better.

2. Understand the Prompt and Instructions.

Before you begin the writing process, take time to understand what the college wants from you. The worst thing you can do is skim through the instructions and submit a piece that doesn't even fit the bare minimum requirements or address the essay topic. Look at the prompt, consider the required word count, and note any unique details each school wants.

3. Create a Strong Opener.

Students seeking help for their application essays often have trouble getting things started. It's a challenging writing process. Finding the right words to start can be the hardest part.

Spending more time working on your opener is always a good idea. The opening sentence sets the stage for the rest of your piece. The introductory paragraph is what piques the interest of the reader, and it can immediately set your essay apart from the others.

4. Stay on Topic.

One of the most important things to remember is to keep to the essay topic. If you're applying to 10 or more colleges, it's easy to veer off course with so many application essays.

A common mistake many students make is trying to fit previously written essays into the mold of another college's requirements. This seems like a time-saving way to avoid writing new pieces entirely, but it often backfires. The result is usually a final piece that's generic, unfocused, or confusing. Always write a new essay for every application, no matter how long it takes.

5. Think About Your Response.

Don't try to guess what the admissions officials want to read. Your essay will be easier to write─and more exciting to read─if you’re genuinely enthusiastic about your subject. Here’s an example: If all your friends are writing application essays about covid-19, it may be a good idea to avoid that topic, unless during the pandemic you had a vivid, life-changing experience you're burning to share. Whatever topic you choose, avoid canned responses. Be creative.

6. Focus on You.

Essay prompts typically give you plenty of latitude, but panel members expect you to focus on a subject that is personal (although not overly intimate) and particular to you. Admissions counselors say the best essays help them learn something about the candidate that they would never know from reading the rest of the application.

7. Stay True to Your Voice.

Use your usual vocabulary. Avoid fancy language you wouldn't use in real life. Imagine yourself reading this essay aloud to a classroom full of people who have never met you. Keep a confident tone. Be wary of words and phrases that undercut that tone.

8. Be Specific and Factual.

Capitalize on real-life experiences. Your essay may give you the time and space to explain why a particular achievement meant so much to you. But resist the urge to exaggerate and embellish. Admissions counselors read thousands of essays each year. They can easily spot a fake.

9. Edit and Proofread.

When you finish the final draft, run it through the spell checker on your computer. Then don’t read your essay for a few days. You'll be more apt to spot typos and awkward grammar when you reread it. After that, ask a teacher, parent, or college student (preferably an English or communications major) to give it a quick read. While you're at it, double-check your word count.

Writing essays for college admission can be daunting, but it doesn't have to be. A well-crafted essay could be the deciding factor─in your favor. Keep these tips in mind, and you'll have no problem creating memorable pieces for every application.

What is the format of a college application essay?

Generally, essays for college admission follow a simple format that includes an opening paragraph, a lengthier body section, and a closing paragraph. You don't need to include a title, which will only take up extra space. Keep in mind that the exact format can vary from one college application to the next. Read the instructions and prompt for more guidance.

Most online applications will include a text box for your essay. If you're attaching it as a document, however, be sure to use a standard, 12-point font and use 1.5-spaced or double-spaced lines, unless the application specifies different font and spacing.

How do you start an essay?

The goal here is to use an attention grabber. Think of it as a way to reel the reader in and interest an admissions officer in what you have to say. There's no trick on how to start a college application essay. The best way you can approach this task is to flex your creative muscles and think outside the box.

You can start with openers such as relevant quotes, exciting anecdotes, or questions. Either way, the first sentence should be unique and intrigue the reader.

What should an essay include?

Every application essay you write should include details about yourself and past experiences. It's another opportunity to make yourself look like a fantastic applicant. Leverage your experiences. Tell a riveting story that fulfills the prompt.

What shouldn’t be included in an essay?

When writing a college application essay, it's usually best to avoid overly personal details and controversial topics. Although these topics might make for an intriguing essay, they can be tricky to express well. If you’re unsure if a topic is appropriate for your essay, check with your school counselor. An essay for college admission shouldn't include a list of achievements or academic accolades either. Your essay isn’t meant to be a rehashing of information the admissions panel can find elsewhere in your application.

How can you make your essay personal and interesting?

The best way to make your essay interesting is to write about something genuinely important to you. That could be an experience that changed your life or a valuable lesson that had an enormous impact on you. Whatever the case, speak from the heart, and be honest.

Is it OK to discuss mental health in an essay?

Mental health struggles can create challenges you must overcome during your education and could be an opportunity for you to show how you’ve handled challenges and overcome obstacles. If you’re considering writing your essay for college admission on this topic, consider talking to your school counselor or with an English teacher on how to frame the essay.

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By the BOOK

Morgan Parker Says ‘Poetry Is Under Everything’ She Writes

Crafting the arguments in “You Get What You Pay For,” her first essay collection, “felt like pulling apart a long piece of taffy,” says the author of “Magical Negro.”

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What books are on your night stand?

The craft anthology “How We Do It,” edited by the great Jericho Brown, and Shayla Lawson’s astounding “How to Live Free in a Dangerous World.”

Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).

Probably on the smoking patio of a wine bar at happy hour on a sunny day, with a pencil in my hand and Dorothy Ashby or Ambrose Akinmusire playing through noise-canceling headphones. Or just a quiet morning on my couch with coffee, so engrossed I forget to flip the record.

What’s the last book you read that made you laugh?

“Erasure,” by Percival Everett . I picked up a used copy at Shakespeare & Company recently — after seeing Cord Jefferson’s brilliant adaptation , “American Fiction” — and even on a reread, it made me laugh out loud from the first page.

The last book that made you cry?

Weird or obnoxious if I say my own? Before that, it was probably Y.A.

Do you count any books as guilty pleasures?

That category’s filled to the brim and beyond by reality TV.

How do you organize your books?

Loosely or not at all. This is much to the horror of my Virgo pals, and while I used to take pride in navigating my shelves on familiarity alone, it’s something I’ve vowed to work on. Still, I doubt I’ll ever be an alphabetical type, and clearly I find genre segregation constricting. I do group things thematically, or even interpersonally — music biographies, Black Panthers, Harlem Renaissance; Jessica Hopper is next to John Giorno, and Chase Berggrun’s “R E D” is next to “Dracula”; Julie Buntin’s “Marlena” is beside her husband Gabe Habash’s “Stephen Florida”; Alison C. Rollins is next to her partner Nate Marshall is next to his bestie José Olivarez. At some point Hilton Als’s “White Girls” ended up next to “Male Fantasies,” and I don’t think I’ll ever separate them.

Which genres do you avoid?

There’s an essay in “You Get What You Pay For” where I mention reading a self-help book (as recommended by my now-former psychiatrist). I’d never read one before and have not since.

How does your poetry relate to your essay writing?

The truth is that poetry is under everything. It’s the lyric and sensory backbone. It’s what drives the sound, pace and imagery. (Everyone knows the best prose writers write and read poetry.) But while a poem strives for precision of language, the essay strives for precision of thought, even argument. In a poem, you can build (or approximate) an argument by plopping two images next to each other. It persuades by pointing. Writing these essays felt like pulling apart a long piece of taffy — I found myself reiterating a lot of what I’ve already expressed in poems, so it almost became a project of stretching out each poetic line, breaking down each concept to its root. The process is about asking, pondering, searching — and letting language take part in the answering.

You have a knack for terrific book titles. How did you name your new collection?

Thank you! I love a good title, but I also acknowledge the high bar I have set for myself. With this one, I struggled a bit, I think because it took me a while to understand the book myself, let alone how to introduce it to the world. The essays encompass a lot of seemingly disparate themes and even tonal registers, so framing the overall collection was daunting. I’d been tossing around a couple of options, including “Cheaper Than Therapy,” which appears as an essay title, when Jay-Z made the choice for me. I was in Italy at a residency, grieving the recent loss of my aunt and watching the “Big Pimpin’” video over and over as I worked on an essay about it for the book. I’d left my heavily tabbed copy of “Decoded” at home in Los Angeles, but was scrolling a PDF for details about the video shoot when I came across the line: “If the price is life, then you better get what you paid for.”

You describe yourself as foolish for believing “words could be the pathway to empathy and writing an active resistance against hate.” Might publishing this book change your mind?

Honestly? It’s my only hope.

What’s the last book you recommended to a member of your family?

“Heavy,” by Kiese Laymon, to my mom; Blair LM Kelley’s “ Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class,” to my dad; and “A Is for Activist,” to my 8-month-old cousin.

What do you plan to read next?

Phillip B. Williams’s “Ours” was just published, and I’ve been excited about it for literally years. Vinson Cunningham’s “Great Expectations” came out the same day as my book, so I plan to make that my tour read.

You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?

June Jordan, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin — but I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t get just as much fun and fulfillment from a night with Angel Nafis, Danez Smith and Saeed Jones.

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Do you want to be a better reader?   Here’s some helpful advice to show you how to get the most out of your literary endeavor .

Each week, top authors and critics join the Book Review’s podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world. Listen here .

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More From Forbes

Prompt engineering embraces new essay-compression technique that expands on getting very constructive generative ai results.

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Handy new prompt engineering technique to do compression on essays and other text is examined and ... [+] showcased as being quite useful.

In today’s column, I am continuing my ongoing coverage of prompt engineering strategies and tactics that aid in getting the most out of using generative AI apps such as ChatGPT, GPT-4, Bard, Gemini, Claude, etc. The focus here is on a brand-new prompting approach that enables you to cleverly compress essays and other text-based narratives. This is a handy technique that ought to be in your prompting best-practices toolkit.

For my in-depth comprehensive guide on over thirty other keystone prompting strategies, see the link here .

Here’s the essence of today’s discussion.

One of the most popular uses of generative AI entails creating summaries of entered text, see my prior coverage on prompting strategies for summarization at the link here and also the chain-of-density technique (CoD) at the link here . The deal is this. You might have a lengthy document that needs a helpful summary covering the crucial points so that you don’t have to wade through a convoluted textual morass. The simplest prompt to achieve a summary will merely tell the AI to go ahead and summarize the material. Boom, you are done, or so it seems.

The problem is that the summary might not be very good. Odds are that the generative AI might omit points that a human would have realized are vital to include in a summary. There is also a significant chance that the source material will be interpreted rather than carried straight ahead into the summary. Loosey-goosey interpretations of what was said in the source could be way off base.

Into this realm comes the act of compression.

Rather than producing a summary that might veer from the source, you can ask to do a compression. The idea of compression is that the source is reduced in size by a thinning process, but no adaptations or rephrasing takes place. You are still seeing the same words that were in the source. A thinning process is undertaken to try and keep just the needed meat on the bones conveying the crux of the source material.

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To clarify, compression is not a silver bullet. Issues about compression can arise. For example, it is conceivable that as generative AI thins out a source text, some key points might inadvertently get weaned out. Another possible issue is that the resulting compressed text might seem nearly unreadable or incomprehensible. The words removed that might have seemed inconsequential by the AI were possibly integral to the intelligible reading of the text.

The bottom line is that anyone proficient in the use of generative AI should know both techniques by heart, freely welding the best ways to do prompting that encompasses summarization and astute prompting that does compression. You can then wisely decide which approach befits a given circumstance. Sometimes you pull out the hammer of summarization, and other times you reach for the screwdriver of compression. They are two distinct tools that require suitable handling and must be selected for the appropriate situations.

A frequent question I get during the prompt engineering classes that I teach is whether summarization is better than compression, or whether compression is better than summarization. This always brings a smile to my face. The conveyed conundrum is a false choice. None is especially better than the other in the abstract. Each provides a set of benefits and drawbacks. I don’t think you can in the abstract make a solid case that a hammer is better than or worse than a screwdriver since the situation at hand dictates as such. The same goes for summarization versus compression.

Okay, now that we’ve got that foundation established, there are already various recommended ways to word a prompt to do summarizations and compressions. A recent research study explored the topic and proffered a prompt for compression that they extensively tested and found to be quite useful. I will walk you through their research efforts and results.

I opted to try out the compression prompt by doing some of my own testing as a mini-experiment using ChatGPT and GPT-4. This allows you to see the compression prompting in action. I will discuss the matter and aim to arm you with how to suitably use the clever technique.

Before we get into the specifics of this new compression technique, it would be useful to make sure we are all on the same page about the nature and importance of prompt engineering.

Let’s do that.

The Nature And Importance Of Prompt Engineering

Please be aware that composing well-devised prompts is essential to getting robust results from generative AI and large language models (LLMs). It is highly recommended that anyone avidly using generative AI should learn about and regularly practice the fine art and science of devising sound prompts. I purposefully note that prompting is both art and science. Some people are wanton in their prompting, which is not going to get you productive responses. You want to be systematic leverage the science of prompting, and include a suitable dash of artistry, combining to get you the most desirable results.

My golden rule about generative AI is this:

• The use of generative AI can altogether succeed or fail based on the prompt that you enter.

If you provide a prompt that is poorly composed, the odds are that the generative AI will wander all over the map and you won’t get anything demonstrative related to your inquiry. Similarly, if you put distracting words into your prompt, the odds are that the generative AI will pursue an unintended line of consideration. For example, if you include words that suggest levity, there is a solid chance that the generative AI will seemingly go into a humorous mode and no longer emit serious answers to your questions.

Be direct, be obvious, and avoid distractive wording.

Being copiously specific should also be cautiously employed. You see, being painstakingly specific can be off-putting due to giving too much information. Amidst all the details, there is a chance that the generative AI will either get lost in the weeds or will strike upon a particular word or phrase that causes a wild leap into some tangential realm. I am not saying that you should never use detailed prompts. That’s silly. I am saying that you should use detailed prompts in sensible ways, such as telling the generative AI that you are going to include copious details and forewarn the AI accordingly.

You need to compose your prompts in relatively straightforward language and be abundantly clear about what you are asking or what you are telling the generative AI to do.

A wide variety of cheat sheets and training courses for suitable ways to compose and utilize prompts has been rapidly entering the marketplace to try and help people leverage generative AI soundly. In addition, add-ons to generative AI have been devised to aid you when trying to come up with prudent prompts, see my coverage at the link here .

AI Ethics and AI Law also stridently enter into the prompt engineering domain. For example, whatever prompt you opt to compose can directly or inadvertently elicit or foster the potential of generative AI to produce essays and interactions that imbue untoward biases, errors, falsehoods, glitches, and even so-called AI hallucinations (I do not favor the catchphrase of AI hallucinations, though it has admittedly tremendous stickiness in the media; here’s my take on AI hallucinations at the link here ).

There is also a marked chance that we will ultimately see lawmakers come to the fore on these matters, possibly devising and putting in place new laws or regulations to try and scope and curtail misuses of generative AI. Regarding prompt engineering, there are likely going to be heated debates over putting boundaries around the kinds of prompts you can use. This might include requiring AI makers to filter and prevent certain presumed inappropriate or unsuitable prompts, a cringe-worthy issue for some that borders on free speech considerations. For my ongoing coverage of these types of AI Ethics and AI Law issues, see the link here and the link here , just to name a few.

All in all, be mindful of how you compose your prompts.

By being careful and thoughtful you will hopefully minimize the possibility of wasting your time and effort. There is also the matter of cost. If you are paying to use a generative AI app, the usage is sometimes based on how much computational activity is required to fulfill your prompt request or instruction. Thus, entering prompts that are off-target could cause the generative AI to take excessive computational resources to respond. You end up paying for stuff that either took longer than required or that doesn’t satisfy your request and you are stuck for the bill anyway.

I like to say at my speaking engagements that prompts and dealing with generative AI is like a box of chocolates. You never know exactly what you are going to get when you enter prompts. The generative AI is devised with a probabilistic and statistical underpinning which pretty much guarantees that the output produced will vary each time. In the parlance of the AI field, we say that generative AI is considered non-deterministic.

My point is that, unlike other apps or systems that you might use, you cannot fully predict what will come out of generative AI when inputting a particular prompt. You must remain flexible. You must always be on your toes. Do not fall into the mental laziness of assuming that the generative AI output will always be correct or apt to your query. It won’t be.

Write that down on a handy snip of paper and tape it onto your laptop or desktop screen.

Using Special Prompts Including Chain-of-Density

There is a slew of somewhat remarkable prompt phrases that are essential for anyone seriously doing prompt engineering. One such phrase involves telling generative AI to work on a stepwise basis, something commonly known as invoking chain-of-thought responses by the AI, see my coverage at the link here . Another popular ploy entails telling the AI to take a deep breath, see my analysis of this prompt at the link here . One of the latest favorites involves commanding the AI to take on a Star Trek consideration when devising an answer, see my discussion at the link here .

I previously covered in my writings the various prompts that are particularly suited for getting summaries of text that you might provide to generative AI. Summarizing text is a very common use of generative AI. You can simply paste a whole bunch of text into generative AI and get a pretty good summary of the text. That being said, summaries can diverge from the original content and potentially contain misleading or even outright incorrect summarized content, see my analysis at the link here .

In short, summarizing can be risky due to the generative AI opting to rephrase the original content. The rephrasing might fail to depict the proper meaning and intention of the source content. Envision using summarization on doctor’s notes via generative AI, which is then handed to a different physician and they only have the summary at their purview, see my exploration of these matters at the link here .

Thus, a conventional summarization could be disturbingly problematic.

There is a method of devising summaries that use a prompting strategy that aims to bolster generative AI toward attaining especially superb or at least better than usual kinds of summaries. The technique is known as chain-of-density (CoD). Anybody versed in prompt engineering ought to become familiar with this insightful technique. Consider chain-of-density as not only helpful for producing summaries but there are a lot of other benefits garnered by understanding how the technique works and how this can power up your overall prompting prowess all-told.

For my detailed coverage of the chain-of-density prompting technique, see the link here .

Allow me a moment to share some of those elicitations with you here.

When you are trying to craft a summary, you often might do so in a series of successive attempts. Your first shot might be to craft a summary that has only a few of the biggest points that need to be included. After considering the initial draft, the odds are that you might further refine the summary by adding more elements to it. This can go on and on. Depending on how thorough you are, you might do a handful or more of these refining iterations. Each iteration can be construed as a chain of iterative summaries, one leading to the next for a given instance of trying to write a summary.

That’s the “chain” part of this process.

Let’s add some further terminology to describe the summary-making effort.

A summary typically starts as somewhat sparse when you first toss it together. There isn’t much of any substance in the summary. You are usually seeking to further pack substance into the summary and do so while fighting the length of the summary. The more substance that you can jam into the summary, the higher the density of the summary.

We can give a name to the substance by saying that we are trying to identify important “entities” within the original content. Those entities might be facts or figures. The entities are said to be anything especially instrumental to the overall meaning of the original content. A hope is to carry over as many of the demonstrative entities as feasible into the summary.

Your summary-making process then is to iteratively devise a summary by starting with a sparse version and then adding more and more entities or substances to increase the density until you reach some desired or suitable end-state. The series of iterations acts as a chain. Each is used to connect to the next. You usually will retain the entities from one version to the next version, and be decidedly adding more of the entities available in the original as you seek to jampack the summary accordingly.

Reflect on the adage of putting five pounds of rocks into a three-pound bag.

Maybe you put one pound of rocks into the three-pound bag at the initial attempt. The bag is considered sparsely populated. There is still room to spare. The density is low. You then put a second pound of rocks into the bag. The density is increasing. The sparseness is lessening. Finally, you put in a third pound of rocks. You have hit the maximum density and the sparseness has presumably dropped to near zero.

Suppose that the bag can be elongated.

Wonderful, you exclaim, being overjoyed at having more available space. Imagine though that you are going to hand the bag over to someone else. The larger and heavier the bag, the less useful it becomes. The same applies to summaries.

A rule of thumb is that you want to minimize the length or size of the summary, meanwhile maximizing the summarization content. The two factors are often in contention with each other. You are tempted to increase the length to get more substance included. The length being increased will potentially undercut that the summary is supposed to be a summary.

A person might seemingly just go ahead and read the original content if the summary approaches the size of the original material being summarized. The summary isn’t especially a summary anymore at that juncture. Indeed, sometimes a summary turns out to be longer than the original content that is supposedly being summarized.

How can this be, you might be thinking?

The answer has to do with being extractive versus being abstractive.

During the summarization process, you are looking at two possibilities of the content being carried over into the summary. First, you aim to be extractive, primarily extracting key aspects and shoveling those into the summary. Second, you might at times be abstractive, whereby you go beyond the words themselves of the original content and begin to reinterpret or perhaps elaborate beyond what the summary per se has to say.

A purely extractive summary is more likely to be construed as a fair and balanced reflection of the original content. You are not changing things up. You are only carrying the essentials (entities) over into the summary. The problem with an abstractive summary is that you are potentially changing up things and will be biasing or in some manner altering the meaning found within the original content being summarized. The danger is that this kind of summary is no longer seen as fair and balanced, and instead is based on the perceptions and opinions of the summarizer.

In a sense, if you want an unadorned straightforward summary, you are better off with an extractive summary. If you want an adorned or embellished summary, that goes beyond the words presented in the original source, you might seek an abstractive summary. The thing is, the abstractive summary might no longer be an apt reflection of the original source. That is also how the summary might become longer than the original since the embellishments can possibly increase the size of things and you could find yourself looking at a summary that is much longer than the source used for the summary.

Focusing On Compression As An Extractive Form Of Summarization

The usual parlance when you want a strictly extractive form of summarization is to say that you want a compression of your text.

I should warn you though that the word “compression” means different things to different people. Some are willing to be abstractive when doing a compression. Others would be aghast at someone veering into an abstractive mode when doing what they consider to be a rightfully done compression. To them, compression must be stridently adherent to not rewording any aspect of the source text being used.

I will be showing you in the next section some examples of using prompts related to asking generative AI to do compression. You will immediately see that the word “compression” is relatively ambiguous to most generative AI apps. They might interpret the word to imply purely extractive, but more likely they will assume this means to be abstractive. You will need to nail down in detail what you want the AI to do. I will show you this.

What else should you be thinking about when it comes to doing compression in generative AI?

I am glad you asked.

A recent research study entitled “LLMLingua-2: Data Distillation for Efficient and Faithful Task-Agnostic Prompt Compression” by Zhuoshi Pan, QianhuiWu, Huiqiang Jiang, Menglin Xia, Xufang Luo, Jue Zhang, Qingwei Lin, Victor Rühle, Yuqing Yang, Chin-Yew Lin, H. Vicky Zhao, Lili Qiu, Dongmei Zhang, arXiv , March 19, 2024, made these salient points (excerpts):

• “This paper focuses on task-agnostic prompt compression for better generalizability and efficiency.”
• “We formulate prompt compression as a token classification problem to guarantee the faithfulness of the compressed prompt to the original one, and use a Transformer encoder as the base architecture to capture all essential information for prompt compression from the full bidirectional context.”
• “Recent years have witnessed the emergence of various prompting techniques for large language models (LLMs), such as Chain-of-Thought (COT), In-context Learning (ICL), and Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). These techniques empower LLMs to handle complex and varied tasks through rich and informative prompts that may exceed tens of thousands of tokens.”
• “However, the benefits of such lengthy prompts come at a cost of increased computational and financial overhead, as well as the degraded information perception ability of LLMs. Prompt compression is a straightforward solution to address these issues, which attempts to shorten the original prompts without losing essential information.”

I’d like to explain some of those notable points to you.

First, one ongoing consideration is whether a compression prompt is written to be task-specific or task-agnostic.

A task-specific prompt is worded to fit a particular task at hand, such as if you were doing a compression of medical notes and you wanted the prompt to emphasize particular characteristics associated with medical lingo. The prompt is devised for that domain.

A task-agnostic prompt is broader and allows you to use it in a wide variety of circumstances. It is always best to have in your tool chest a task-agnostic prompt since you can use it on a generalized basis, plus you can tweak the wording for task-specific settings. The aim of the above research study was to focus on task-agnostic prompts for compression, which is handy for our purposes herein.

Second, we often speak of compression prompts as hopefully being faithful to the source material.

Faithfulness refers to the notion that the compression tries to retain crucial wording and not goof by removing something that will substantively undercut the meaning. Imagine that a sentence said “Do not cook for more than two minutes” and the compression lopped out the word “not”, leading to this compressed version of “Do cook for more than two minutes”. Ouch, your souffle might be ruined by your having used an unfaithful compression.

Third, an aspirational aim of compression is to be bidirectional, allowing that besides going from the source to a proper compressed version, you potentially can use the compressed version to get back to the source. This is not necessarily the case and opens quite a can of worms. Not everyone needs or expects to be able to return to the full source.

Fourth, it is worthwhile to note frequent circumstances whereby compression really shines.

Suppose that you are importing a ton of text into generative AI, see my explanation of importations prompting strategies at the link here . Or maybe you are using in-context modeling and relying on an external source of text, doing so via the use of RAG (retrieval augmented generation), see my discussion at the link here . And so on.

An important question that comes up is whether it is sensible to bring in the whole ball of wax or whether to try and somehow shorten what you need to bring in.

If you bring in a massive amount of text, you are fighting against the potential limits of generative AI. Those limits can severely degrade the results of the AI trying to cope with the text overload. You also have to consider potential costs. If you are paying for the use of generative AI, the longer-sized text is bound to be a costlier charge than if you could thin it down. Likewise, the servers used to compute the generative AI actions will consume more computational cycles and you will get a double whammy on cost.

I am sure that you immediately discern that a potential solution would be to compress the content, thus, you don’t have to confront the technical limits of the generative AI and might be able to keep your costs lower too. Whenever you are considering bringing into generative AI any large-scale body of text, please have alarm bells go off in your head that tell you to consider doing either compression or summarization. You will be glad that you considered the option.

Returning to the above research study facets, let’s see what they did and the results they found (excerpts):

• “We conduct extensive experiments and analysis on both in-domain (i.e., MeetingBank) and out-of-domain datasets (i.e., LongBench, ZeroScrolls, GSM8K, and Big Bench Hard).” (ibid).
• “Despite being small in size, our model shows significant performance gains over strong baselines and demonstrates robust generalization ability from GPT-3.5-Turbo to Mistral-7B.” (ibid).
• “Additionally, our model is 3x-6x faster than existing prompt compression methods, while accelerating the end-to-end latency by 1.6x-2.9x with compression ratios of 2x-5x.” (ibid).

You can see that they were able to attain some impressive results.

I especially applaud research on generative AI that includes multiple generative AI apps. I say this because each generative AI app differs from the other, ergo if a study exclusively uses only one generative AI app it is hard to claim that the same approach will work equally well on other generative AI apps. Here, it is good news for us that they tried different generative AI apps and essentially found similarly positive results.

I am sure you are eager to see an example of what their compression prompt was able to achieve.

Here is one such example from their study, in this case compressing a meeting transcript snippet from a database of such transcripts (excerpt):

• Original Text: “Item 15, report from City Manager Recommendation to adopt three resolutions. First, to join the Victory Pace program. Second, to join the California first program. And number three, consenting to the inclusion of certain properties within the jurisdiction in the California Hero program. It was emotion, motion, a second and public comment. CNN. Please cast your vote. Oh. Was your public comment? Yeah. Please come forward. I thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Members of the council. My name is Alex Mitchell. I represent the hero program. Just wanted to let you know that the hero program. Has been in California for the last three and a half years.”
• Compressed Text: “Item 15, City Manager Recommendation adopt three resolutions. Join Victory Pace program. Join California first program. Consent inclusion properties jurisdiction California Hero program. Emotion, motion, second, public comment. Cast vote. Public comment? Come forward. Alex Mitchell, represent Hero program. Hero program in California three half years.”

The original text has 109 words, while the compressed text has 46 words. The compression removed 63 words (that’s 109 words in total minus 46 words remaining = 63 words removed). You could say that roughly 58% of the source was removed (i.e., 58% of 109 is about 63). Well over half of the source has been removed.

Now comes the tough part.

Does the compressed version suitably capture the crux of the original text?

Has anything been removed that is essential and thus the compressed version has missed the boat?

I think you can likely see how hard a problem it is to do a proper compression if you try doing the same task yourself by hand. Here’s what I am saying. I want you to look at the original text and try to compress it. What would you remove? What would you leave in? How far can you go on this process, yet still ensure that the result has the needed points and is intelligible?

A twist involves settings where the original text itself is not necessarily that intelligible. A transcript is a great example of a thorny problem. The odds are that a transcript will contain filler words and utterances. Are they worthy of being retained or should those be removed? If you exhort it is obvious to remove the utterances, the issue there is that the tenor or tone of what was said could end up being removed. Perhaps that aspect is vital to comprehending the matter.

Besides deciding whether a compression has done a good job, you might also be wondering whether there is even more compression that can be performed.

Envision that we use a compression that does a good job and reduces the size of the source to half in size. But along comes a better approach that can do the same job and achieve a three-quarters reduction in size. Assuming that all else is equal, you would naturally seek to use the three-quarters reduction approach.

This can be tricky to compare. The greater the compression in terms of reducing the size, the more likely the odds that the compression isn’t going to be as intelligible or otherwise isn’t as apt. The criteria are usually battling with each other. The more reduction, the less of a good job in the sense of being usable and appropriate. The more of a good job you want, the less reduction you can usually achieve. Darned if you do, darned if you don’t.

The Compression Prompt As A Task-Agnostic Template

Congratulations, you have waded through the weeds to get to the crescendo.

Let’s see what the prompt template of their task-agnostic compression prompt consists of (excerpt):

• “System Prompt: You are an excellent linguist and very good at compressing passages into short expressions by removing unimportant words while retaining as much information as possible.”
• “User Prompt: Compress the given text to short expressions, such that you can reconstruct it as close as possible to the original.”
• “Unlike the usual text compression, I need you to comply with the 5 conditions below:”
• “1. You can ONLY remove unimportant words.”
• “2. Do not reorder the original words.”
• “3. Do not change the original words.”
• “4. Do not use abbreviations or emojis.”
• “5. Do not add new words or symbols.”

-“Compress the original aggressively by removing words only. Compress the original as short as you can, while retaining as much information as possible. If you understand, please compress the following text: {text to compress}”

I will be using that same prompt in a moment when I show you examples using ChatGPT and GPT-4.

Let’s briefly review the prompt and see what it contains.

First, the prompt tells the generative AI to invoke a persona. For my extensive coverage of personas in generative AI, see the link here and the link here . This is a powerful prompting technique.

Personas get the AI into a computational pattern-matching mode that can significantly aid whatever task you are trying to perform. In this instance, they are telling the AI that it is to pretend to be an excellent linguist and good at compressing passages of text. Nice touch.

Many users of generative AI fail to lean into personas when doing so would be especially advantageous. The use of a persona for amping up compression is a good move. Make sure to keep personas in your mind whenever using generative AI. You’ll be glad that you did.

Second, they provide five stipulated conditions for the compression. This is good since you want to provide as much guidance as you can when asking for a compression. I mentioned earlier that the word “compression” can be ambiguous. Spelling out the five stated conditions will give the AI important clues about what to do.

Third, the phrasing for AI that you use in a prompt ought to at times be emphatic. If you aren’t emphatic, the instructions might be ignored or downplayed. For example, telling the generative AI to aggressively do the compression is a means of guiding the AI toward doing a strident job. I should note that your being emphatic has a downside. The emphatic wording, if it goes way over the top, can trigger a mathematical and computational pattern-matching storm that will distract from what you are trying to undertake.

I believe that sufficiently outlines the keystones of the prompt. Just like buying a new car, we need to take this shiny new vehicle for a drive. Get yourself strapped in and ready for a wild ride.

Showcasing The Topic Via Examples In Generative AI

I will next proceed to showcase what happens when you use compression prompting while in a conversation with generative AI. I am going to use ChatGPT and GPT-4 to showcase my examples. ChatGPT and GPT-4 are sensible choices in this case due to their immense popularity as generative AI apps. An estimated one hundred million weekly active users are said to be utilizing ChatGPT and GPT-4. That’s a staggering number.

A few quick comments before we launch into using ChatGPT and GPT-4.

If you are going to try to do the same prompts that I show here, realize that the probabilistic and statistical properties will likely produce slightly different results than what I show here. That’s the nature of generative AI and how it is devised.

You also should expect that different generative AI apps will respond in different ways. Not all generative AI apps are the same. The key is that sometimes a particular prompt will work in one generative AI app and not another. You will need to undertake a series of trial-and-error attempts to ferret this out.

There is also the timing factor. A prompt that worked today might not work the same way tomorrow. Most of the generative AI apps are continually being updated. The updates might alter internal facets that could change how the AI reacts to your prompting.

We are ready to get underway and I will begin with ChatGPT.

You can do the same in whichever generative AI app that you are using.

As a heads-up, I decided to use Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address as the text that I wanted to have compressed. There are variations of his speech that can be readily found online. I opted to use a version that contains 271 words. Our aim in this mini-experiment will be to do a compression and see if we can reduce the size, along with retaining intelligibility and vital points.

I’m sure that you already know the speech, which starts this way “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure…”

Here we go.

• My entered prompt into ChatGPT: “I want you to compress an essay that I am going to give you. Are you ready?”
• ChatGPT generated response: “Yes, I'm ready to help compress your essay. Please provide the essay, and I'll assist you in condensing it.”
• My entered prompt into ChatGPT: “Here is the text of the Gettysburg address. Go ahead and compress it.”
• ChatGPT generated response: “Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, delivered during the American Civil War, reflects on the nation's founding principles of liberty and equality. He honors those who sacrificed their lives on the battlefield, emphasizing the ongoing responsibility to preserve freedom and uphold democratic government. Lincoln urges dedication to the unfinished task of ensuring the nation's survival and the continuation of its principles, emphasizing the importance of honoring the fallen and ensuring their sacrifice was not in vain.”

Take a look at the so-called compression that I got.

You right away certainly observed that the generated response is not a compression. It is more of a summary. Well, maybe not quite a summary either. It has indications that go beyond the text that was provided. This likely was tapped into by ChatGPT as per other prior data training about Abraham Lincoln and the Gettysburg Address in general during the initial setup of ChatGPT.

I’m glad this happened. You see, I wanted to show you this kind of an example to emphasize my earlier point that the word “compression” can be ambiguous. This was not the kind of compression I had in mind.

If at first, you don’t succeed, try and try again, as they say.

• My entered prompt into ChatGPT: “Let’s start over. I want you to compress the material. You are to use only the material provided and compress the contents. Don’t make any interpretations. Don’t do any rewording.”
• ChatGPT generated response: “Understood. Please provide the material you'd like me to compress, and I'll follow your instructions accordingly.”
• My entered prompt into ChatGPT: ”Here is the text to be compressed…”
• ChatGPT generated response: "87 years ago, our fathers founded a nation dedicated to liberty and equality. Now, in a great civil war, we honor those who sacrificed for our nation. It's fitting to dedicate this ground, yet their deeds surpass our words. We must continue their work, ensuring their sacrifices were not in vain. Let us resolve to uphold freedom and democratic government.”

I valiantly tried to convey to ChatGPT that I wanted a compression.

Though the result is more so a compression than the first run, it still isn’t a compression of the caliber we are looking for. One irksome thing was the “87 years ago” which is a kind of summary or interpretation of what the source says. Didn’t want that.

But I am somewhat pleased that the result came out badly because it shows that even if you try to be instructive about compression, the result still might not come out as hoped for. I think we are primed and ready to see if the compression prompting template will do any better with ChatGPT.

Are you ready to see?

Hold your breath.

• My entered prompt (based on the research prompt template): “You are an excellent linguist and very good at compressing passages into short expressions by removing unimportant words while retaining as much information as possible. Compress the text I am going to give you and compress the text into short expressions, and such that you (ChatGPT) can reconstruct it as close as possible to the original. Unlike the usual text compression, I need you to comply with 5 conditions. First condition: You can ONLY remove unimportant words. Second condition: Do not reorder the original words. Third condition: Do not change the original words. Fourth condition: Do not use abbreviations or emojis. Fifth condition: Do not add new words or symbols. Make sure to compress the original text aggressively by removing words only. Compress the original text as short as you can, while retaining as much information as possible. Do you understand these instructions?”
• ChatGPT generated response : “Yes, I understand the instructions. Please provide the text you'd like me to compress.”
• My entered prompt: ”Here is the text to be compressed…”
• ChatGPT generated response: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, a final resting place for those who gave their lives. It is fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, consecrate, hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, consecrated it. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living to be dedicated to the unfinished work they who fought here have nobly advanced. It is for us to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause—that we highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish.”

Finally, we got a compression.

We are now in the right ballpark.

The compressed result has 217 words.

The original text has 271 words, while the compressed text has 217 words. The compression removed 54 words (that’s 271 words in total minus 217 words remaining = 54 words removed). You could say that roughly 20% of the source was removed (i.e., 20% of 271 is about 54). Approximately one-fifth was removed.

I dare say that’s not a compression ratio to be overly elated about. Look, I’m glad that we got the 20%, and I don’t like to look a gift horse in the mouth. It would seem intuitively we might be able to do better.

Note that the prompt doesn’t give a target level of compression. This is something you might consider adding to the prompt. I would first start without a target and just see what you get. Once you’ve seen the result of a first run, go ahead and consider redoing the prompt with a desired target level.

We must also of course consider whether the compressed version is any good at the get-go.

In the case of something like the Gettysburg Address, we could argue forever about the portions that were removed. It is tough since the entire speech is remarkable. Nearly every line and each word is astounding. Imagine trying to compress a poem, and the odds are that you will be leaving out facets that will break your heart.

Another reminder is that you should carefully consider what text you are going to compress and whether the compression, no matter how it works, will be able to reasonably do justice to the original text.

I went ahead and played with the compression prompt template and tried all kinds of variations. In the end, I decided that ChatGPT just doesn’t have the gravitas to go much further on this. I became exasperated and thought that for sure GPT-4, being more advanced than ChatGPT, would do a better job.

Let’s try using GPT-4 and see what happens.

• ​​ My entered prompt into GPT-4: “I want you to compress an essay that I am going to give you. Here is the text to be compressed…”
• GPT-4 generated response:

“To compress the text while retaining its essence, I'll remove some parts and rephrase others for brevity.”

"Four score and seven years ago, our fathers founded a new nation on this continent, dedicated to liberty and the belief that all men are created equal. We are now in the midst of a great civil war, testing whether this nation, or any nation so conceived, can endure. We meet on a battle-field of that war, dedicating a part of it as a final resting place for those who gave their lives for this nation's survival. It's fitting and proper we do this.

“Yet, we can't dedicate, consecrate, or hallow this ground beyond what the brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have done. The world may not remember our words, but it can't forget their deeds. It's our task to be dedicated to the unfinished work they've advanced so nobly. From these honored dead we take increased devotion to their cause, resolving that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of, by, and for the people shall not perish."

“The compressed text has been reduced to 176 words.”

End of GPT-4 response

You can see that I first tried a vague prompt about compression.

Sure enough, the compression included rephrasing, which isn’t what I had in mind. No problem. You can’t expect generative AI to be reading minds (well, you soon can, as I explain is being researched, see my coverage at the link here ).

Similar to what I had done with ChatGPT, I will next try a compression prompt based on some simple wording. I will also include a target level of compression so you can see how that impacts the result.

Here’s what took place.

• My entered prompt into GPT-4: “Do the compression over again. You cannot do any rephrasing this time. You can only remove words. Compress as much as possible while abiding by these rules. Try to aim for a result that has 100 words or less.”

“To compress the text by only removing words without rephrasing, I'll select key sentences and phrases that capture the essence of the original message while significantly reducing the length. Given the constraints, this selection process aims to preserve the core themes of unity, dedication, and the importance of the struggle while adhering to the word count limit.”

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. It is for us the living, to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced."

“The condensed version of the text is approximately 99 words in size while adhering to the rule of only removing words without rephrasing.”

Seems like GPT-4 did what I asked.

As always, it is important to gauge the intelligibility and aptness of the compression. I won’t delve into that here, other than to say it seemed basically on par with what might be expected, especially given the severe constraint of being around 100 words or less.

We are ready to try the compression prompt template.

• My entered prompt into GPT-4 (based on the research prompt template): “You are an excellent linguist and very good at compressing passages into short expressions by removing unimportant words while retaining as much information as possible. Compress the text I am going to give you and compress the text into short expressions, and such that you (ChatGPT) can reconstruct it as close as possible to the original. Unlike the usual text compression, I need you to comply with 5 conditions. First condition: You can ONLY remove unimportant words. Second condition: Do not reorder the original words. Third condition: Do not change the original words. Fourth condition: Do not use abbreviations or emojis. Fifth condition: Do not add new words or symbols. Make sure to compress the original text aggressively by removing words only. Compress the original text as short as you can, while retaining as much information as possible. Do you understand these instructions?”
• GPT-4 generated response : “Yes, I understand the instructions. Please provide the text you'd like me to compress.”
• My entered prompt into GPT4: ”Here is the text to be compressed…”
• GPT-4 generated response: “Four score seven years ago fathers brought forth continent, new nation, conceived Liberty, dedicated proposition men created equal. Now engaged great civil war, testing whether nation, any nation conceived dedicated, can long endure. Met great battle-field war. Come dedicate portion field, final resting place who gave lives nation might live. Altogether fitting proper do this. But, larger sense, can not dedicate—not consecrate—not hallow—ground. Brave men, living dead, struggled, have consecrated, above our power add detract. World will little note, nor long remember say here, but never forget did here. For us living, rather, dedicated here unfinished work fought have nobly advanced. Rather for us here dedicated great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead take increased devotion cause gave last full measure devotion—that here highly resolve dead not died in vain—that nation, under God, shall new birth freedom—and government people, by people, for people, shall not perish earth.”

Note that I didn’t give a target level this time and thus the size of the result was based on the general tenor of the compression prompt about being aggressive on the compression.

The original text has 271 words, while the compressed text has 156 words. The compression removed 115 words (that’s 271 words in total minus 156 words remaining = 115 words removed). You could say that roughly 42% of the source was removed (i.e., 42% of 271 is about 115). We were nearing maybe half being removed. Remarkable.

I’ll mention that as always, we would want to closely scrutinize the compressed version. All the other caveats I’ve mentioned still apply.

My recommendation to you is that you try doing some compression prompting exercises via whichever generative AI app you are customarily using. Do so now, before you suddenly discover the need to do a compression. It would be wise to be prepared.

Proceed as follows. First, make use of vague compression prompts and see what happens. Next, fine-tune those prompts and look anew at what happens. Then, try the mentioned compression prompt and gauge how it goes for you. Tweak the prompt as needed. Keep on practicing until you feel you’ve gotten the right swing of things. Reward yourself accordingly.

A final thought for now on this matter.

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn, the famed British statesman, and journalist, said this about compression: “The essence of a quote is the compression of a mass of thought and observation into a single saying.”

Compression is not an easy task. Any wanton approach can easily do compression if you are willing to toss intelligibility and aptness out the window. Getting generative AI to do erstwhile compression requires soundness on the part of the person entering the prompts. They also need to carefully review the result and not wantonly hand off the compressed version to others who might be unaware of what the original had to say.

Please remember that I energetically asked you to consider practicing doing compressions in generative AI, so that when the day arrives that you must do so, you are ready with the axe firmly in hand.

The last line today suitably goes to Abraham Lincoln: "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax."

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