Chapter 10: Writing Introductions and Conclusions

What You Will Make

Draft an opening, a conclusion, and a provisional title. Add an abstract only if the assignment requires one. A short course essay does not automatically need every component of a journal article.

Set Up the Actual Question

Orient the reader to the case and the difficulty your argument addresses. State the approach and answer at a level the body can deliver. Avoid background that delays the question without helping the reader understand it.

Fictional teaching case: This lesson uses the invented campus-transit records in Chapter 1. Record labels and numbers are practice material, not real research to cite or submit.

Match the Beginning and Ending

Opening model: “A boarding increase is not the same measure as access after a late class. This essay compares the count, timetable, and voluntary survey in the fictional dossier to evaluate what the service change establishes about evening access. The records indicate greater use while leaving a reported timetable gap unresolved.”

Conclusion model: “Read together, the records support a narrower result than universal improvement. More weekday trips were counted, but the last departure still precedes the late classes reported by eight volunteers. The evidence therefore identifies an access question that the boarding total cannot answer, while leaving the campus-wide scale and cause uncertain.”

The conclusion assumes the body has analysed those records and limitations. It does not introduce a new survey, claim causation, or announce that further research makes the existing findings worthless.

Try It Yourself

Read only your introduction and conclusion. List the questions promised in the first and the answers delivered in the second. Then locate their support in the body. A missing match tells you where to revise.

Try a title that identifies the specific relationship, such as “Counting Trips, Assessing Access: A Campus-Transit Evaluation.” For a required abstract, summarise the question, approach, result, and central limit according to the course’s length and format instructions.

Check Your Work

• Can a reader identify the case, question, and argument early?
• Does the ending follow analysis already developed?
• Is the significance specific rather than a universal claim?
• Does the title or abstract accurately represent the final essay?

Return to these parts after substantive revision, when you know what the essay actually establishes.

Source Guidance

A conclusion can explain the significance of the argument without restating every step. (Harvard College Writing Center)