How Do I End My Story?

Developing a Conclusion

Many students find conclusions to be the most difficult part of the essay to write. Students feel the pressure of finding that perfect last word. Instead of getting clutched trying to write perfect final lines, think of the conclusion as your opportunity to leave your audience with a departing thought that encapsulates your major point. Then write it in a style consistent with the tone of the piece.

Each of the conclusions below, written by published authors and college students, tries to leave the audience with a final, meaningful message

Conclusion Examples:

• "Someday, of course - and I will make no predictions as to exactly when - they are bound to tire of getting so little in return and to demand to be paid what they're worth. There'll be a lot of anger when that day comes, and strikes and disruption. But the sky will not fall, and we will all be better off for it in the end."
  - Barbara Ehrenreich, from "Nickel and Dimed"
• "Cautiously, I reached out and touched the skin. It felt cold and firm, not unlike clay. As I walked out, I felt glad to have satisfied my curiosity about dead bodies, but all too happy to let someone else handle them."
  - Brian Cable, from "The Last Stop"
• "To most people - with or without PhD.s - love will always be more than the sum of its natural parts. It's a commingling of body and soul, reality and imagination, poetry and phenyl ethylamine. In our deepest hearts, most of us harbor the hope that love will never fully yield up its secrets, that it will always elude our grasp."
  - Anastasia Toufexis, from "Love: The Right Chemistry"
• "Baxter's Miss Ferenczi provided me with a clear example of how to engage students in life's bigger questions, and so, to this day, I am compelled to use one of her "substitute facts" now and again, when necessary."
  - Ernest Patterson, from "The Power of Narrative"