Analytical Essay: Conclusion

Hi guys, and welcome to the sixth video in the how to write an analytical essay series. By now you would have a mostly finished essay. You've done your body paragraphs and you've written your introduction, and today we're going to be looking at how to write a conclusion. Show more

So by the end of this, you want to understand what goes into a conclusion and you want to make sure that you're feeling really confident that you can write a strong and memorable conclusion for your essay. Now this might seem really obvious, but your conclusion is the very last thing that your reader sees. So you want to make sure that they finish your essay, feeling that you're really confident that you understand your topic, and you make sure you give them a refresher of what you're taught about, what you've talked about in the essay. Show more

So i just wanted to remind you of this essay structure burger that we visited at the start of the series. So by now you would have done your introduction, you've done your body paragraphs and now we're up to our conclusion at the bottom. So what are the things that in a conclusion? So there are three main things you need to include. Number one: you need to summarize the points that you've made in your essay. Number two: you need to restate your thesis in a new way. And number three is that: so what comment? You need to make, some kind of lasting comment that sticks in your reader's mind. So let's go through these in more detail. Number one: a summary of your points. Now it's really important here that you don't just list them- and that might be your first step in your first draft- just to get it down, but try and say it in a new way and say to your reader what you think the techniques do when they're put together. Why, why has the author or the director done what they've done? What is the main purpose? Number two: you need to restate your thesis. So just a reminder that your thesis is that main argument or your answer to that question, and you brought that up in your introduction, and so it's important not to repeat it in the exact same way that you did in your introduction. Try and say it in a new way. Show more

Number three: you need to make a lasting comment, and this is where your teachers will often say: so what? So you've got to your end of your essay and they are quite clear that you understand techniques. You've done really, really well, but so what? This is where you make that lasting comment. What is the overall impact on the reader? Why? Why do these techniques make a difference? What do they do? And it's really important to make this a powerful statement, because it shows you have that next level of understanding and that's what gets you into that a band. Okay, what's not, in a conclusion, really important? You don't bring up any new points or new evidence, okay. So at this point you might be thinking, well, how do i start my conclusion? And there are a whole bunch of different ways. I'm going to list four for you and feel free to use whichever one works for you. So we'll go through them in more detail. Number one is a sign post. So this is very commonly used by people who are new to essays. They might write something like to conclude, or in conclusion, or to summarize. This isn't great, but if you are lost for how to start, this might be a great one for you for your first draft, okay. Show more

Number two: transition phase. This is where you link together your body paragraphs and the conclusion and it makes it a really smooth transition. So you would use words from your thesis or main idea or your question, because you would. You would have used those throughout the essay anyway. So you're really just linking it all together. So i've got an example here and it's the same essay question that we've revisited throughout this series and i could start that conclusion with: although her diary is known for its coming of age experiences and fear, and fear dominates the screen. So you can see, here i've pulled pieces of what i've already talked about and i've got that main idea, which is anne's fear, and i've linked it all together. Show more

Number three: you can also start your conclusion by making a comment about your main idea. So for that example question that we've revisited, that's anne's fear, make sure that this isn't your thesis, because that's not what we're doing quite yet. This is just our first sentence. So, to give you an example, it might be something like fear is the main emotion that dominates the screen in dawn helm's miniseries, remembering that dawn helm is our director. Show more

Okay, number four: you can also use your introduction as kind of inspiration for what to write, and this can be a really good one, because it makes your essay really cohesive, makes it flow well and it kind of does a big circle and comes back on itself and makes sense. So you want to choose a phrase, a really good one from your introduction and kind of rework it into your conclusion. I've got an example here and just a refresher. Remember, in our introduction we talked about ann's physical and emotional journey and i kind of used that to start talking about my main idea. So here i've got: ann's emotional journey is explored in the miniseries and fear dominates this journey from start to finish. So you can see, i've pulled a couple of words for ideas and then written it a bit differently. Show more

So those are the four main ones i'm going to cover. But how you start, your conclusion will be completely different for each essay and each person really, because you each have your own unique writing style and some are going to come more naturally than others. So i've got an example question here, the same one we've revisited each time, which is how a filming technique is used, and this is an example conclusion. So i've put those things together for my starting sentence. I've got anne's emotional journeys explored in dawn helms biographical mini-series. Again, this sentence is one that i've chosen to use. That that linking sentence. I've used my, my introduction is inspiration. I then talked about the things that i've discussed in each paragraph. That's what's in blue and then in green. This is where i visited that. So what? This is where i've gone through. Why does it matter? What is really happening in this mini series? What is the director trying to get us to understand? Okay, so that's it for the conclusion video, and i just wanted to revisit the objectives again. So have a look through and if you, if you don't quite understand these things, you might want to re-watch the video. Show more

And i will see you next time for how to incorporate quotations into your essay. See you later. Show more