Hello. Today, we're going to discuss conclusions and conclusions for many people are the hardest part of a writing project. And if for me, I have a lot of trouble with conclusions even in these videos at the end of some of the videos have been like stuck with how to end the video like in the beginning of the video, I could say hello, I could talk about what we're going to do in the video. But at the end I almost always stumble over exactly how to end it. I think it feels a little abrupt. And so in your conclusions that you are using when you're writing projects, please try to think about not being abrupt. You want to think about how to effectively conclude. The reason conclusions are hard for people is very practical, I think. People by the time they're writing conclusions they might be up against a deadline and just don't have time to adequately devote to the conclusion. They might also feel a little bit tired of their writing project. They've already said everything you want to say in a writing project and so what do you put in a conclusion? People also have questions about how to start a conclusion, they don't know how to kind of signal to readers that it's time to move into a conclusion. So they'll revert to a phrase like to in conclusion or to conclude, and sometimes in some context that's okay. Were going to think today about alternatives to that because I think there are a number of alternatives to had actually moved in to the conclusion. And the final aspect of conclusions that's hard for people is to decide how long a conclusion should be. And sometimes there are paragraph, sometimes there are couple paragraphs, it kind of depends on the context in which you're writing. But the important thing to remember with conclusions is that they're really important. They're the last moment you have in which you can talk to your readers. So please do take time and care with your conclusions and use them to your advantage. It's one of the power positions in your writing. The title, the first sentence, the introduction, transition sentences, your argument sentence, the conclusion, the closing sentence, these are all power positions where you're thinking this is really the moment where you can have a great impact on your readers. The purpose of conclusions in general includes the following three aspects. To recap what has been said, some busy readers even if you hook them in the beginning as best as you can. And even if you're so well renowned and respected in the field that people generally hang on every word you say. Even still some busy readers will not read the whole essay and only read the conclusion to kind of get to the heart of the matter. So imagine that you're recapping for readers what has come before. And I put recap instead of repeat which is different, because you don't want to repeat. You don't want to actually cut and paste sentences from one section of your essay to the conclusion. You want to recap it in a slightly different way with a slightly different inflection. You want to emphasize what's significant. What's the purpose of your having written this argument? What do you really want readers to take away from it? Think about why it's important? What's significant? Some people refer to this as the so what question. So as a reader maybe I'll read your writing. And then I'll say, so what? What do you want me to do with it? And this is your chance in the conclusion to share that with people. And then finally, a third element is to point towards future directions. Scholarly writing is an ongoing conversation. What you say you hope other people are going to take away and do other stuff with. So what are some possible ideas for either future areas of inquiry or new areas of application or things you didn't have a chance to cover or study or research for this? You can point your readers in some of those general directions. We will be looking at a full conclusion in a second. But let's first examine some closing sentences to see the way that some of the writers we've been reading chose to actually end with the final sentence of their paper. Final sentence is really important. It's the last words that people will read right before they move on. So make it an important sentence. Here's Coyle's sentence. More stars, Clifford says, are on the way. And I would say that this is an example of Coyle saying that it's kind of a hopeful. It's pointing to the future so all kinds of more stars are up and coming its also though giving away that final spot to Clifford, so that was a choice that Coyle made to kind of offer another writer that final moment in his essay. Here's Colvin's, but the striking, liberating news is that greatness isn't reserved for a preordained few. It is available to you and to everyone. And here again is that kind of inspirational call to action at the end trait. You can do this, this is important, this is why it's significant. And here's Charness and Tufiash. Despite the difficulty in pursuing research with experts, the studies undertaken in domains such as sports, medicine and aviation during the past decade, show the promise of the expert performance approach. And so here too, we have another example of future directions. The promise of the expert performance approach. And so in all these cases this is a writer saying this is the kind of, I'm inspiring you, I'm inspiring something something beyond what I have written. And also talking about the difficulty in pursuing research. So if I were a researcher I would take that as kind of a challenge. So let me think about the difficulties, let me name some of the difficulties, let me work on this problem. Here's and example of Colvin's conclusion and again, as with the introduction that we looked at Colvin's conclusion is several paragraphs. In your work, you may not have several paragraphs or you might have more than several paragraphs. It kind of depends on the context. So here's his signal that he's moving away from the body of his essay to the conclusion, for most people. I can imagine him kind of thinking that readers are going to take a breath, this is the beginning of a new paragraph, it's a breath for most people. It's also a move kind of more to a bird's eye view or a view above. Applying what he's maybe been talking about to a more perspective. This is an alternative to him having written in conclusion or to conclude, which would have been another choice he made, but I think this is a smoother version. For most people work is hard enough without pushing ever harder. Those extra steps are so difficult and painful, they almost never get done. That's the way it must be. If great performance were easy, it wouldn't be rare. Which leads to possibly the deepest question about greatness. And here we have him saying, here's even more significance. Which suggests already he's talked about stuff that's really important. But here, this is really it. And as a reader this shows me oh, I really need to listen. I'm so interested to hear what the deepest question is. Well experts understand an enormous amount about the behavior that produces great performance. They understand very little about where that behavior comes from. And here we have kind of a combination of here's the significance of what he's done as well as the way that you carry forward his research. The authors of one study conclude and here he names some experts. So again, we're still using experts in the conclusion. The critical reality is that we are not hostage to some naturally granted level of talent. And I would say at this point that Colvin is moving to do that kind of work of inspiring his readers or a call to action of some kind like a rallying call. We can make ourselves what we will. Strangely, that idea is not popular and then still, he's showing the significance. People hate abandoning the notion that they would coast to fame and riches if they found their talent. But that view is tragically constraining. Because when they hit life's inevitable bumps in the road they conclude that they just aren't gifted and give up. Maybe we can't expect most people to achieve greatness. It's just too demanding, but the striking liberating news is that greatness isn't reserved for a preordained few. It is available to you and to everyone and here, that's like kind of the inspiring final ending. And this is also a kind of the challenge to readers. Maybe it's just too demanding for you. Maybe you can't do it, which as a reader what I get from this is that's not too demanding for me, I can do it. So these are the choices that Colvin made in his conclusion, and I'm interested to see what choices you make in your conclusion.
