This lesson will highlight how to write concluding sentences. We’ll look at examples and starters. A short quiz will follow to test your knowledge about concluding sentences.
What is a Concluding Sentence?
A concluding sentence indicates that you are bringing closure to a paragraph. Writing a concluding sentence may not come as easily as you may think. Many writers fail to realize that it closes out the final thoughts about the topic on which they are writing. This is why it is important for you to be able to write effective concluding sentences.
For each paragraph, the reader should be able to identify what your key points are based on the concluding sentence. Remember, it should not include any information that was not discussed in the paragraph.When teaching students how to write concluding sentences, you may need to provide a few examples they will be able to use as a guide for their own writing. Examples of concluding sentence starters include:
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- In conclusion
- Therefore
- As expressed
- Overall
- As a result
- Thus
- Finally
- Lastly
- For this reason
- In general
Characteristics of Effective Concluding Sentences
It is important for your students to know how to write effective concluding sentences in order to drive home the final point. Some characteristics include:
- Reviewing main points mentioned in a paragraph
- Restating the topic sentence
- Are found at the end of a paragraph
- Do not introduce new ideas or topics
As the writer, you should keep in mind that concluding sentences may look different for various types of writing. Examples of these types of writing include narratives, descriptions, compare and contrast, and argument.
The concluding sentence of a narrative paragraph should emphasize the moral lesson to the audience. With descriptive paragraphs, the concluding sentence helps to tie everything together by emphasizing details from the topic sentence, using different wording and summing up supporting facts. When writing a concluding sentence for the compare and contrast paragraph, you will want to restate both topics by pointing out the various similarities and differences that were discussed. The concluding sentence in an argument paragraph will summarize the argument being made. It may reaffirm why the argument is correct and the consequences that may occur if the argument is not heeded.
Examples of Concluding Sentences
Let’s look at an example paragraph, and how a concluding sentence would be written for it:Early colonists came to the New World in order to gain freedom from the harsh reign of the English monarchy. Not only did the colonists desire freedom from the king’s taxation system, but they also wanted to break away from the intolerance that kept them from worshiping freely in England. They saw the new country as a place for new beginnings, and looked forward to beginning their lives anew;even if it meant living in a land of uncertainty.There are several ways in which the concluding sentence in this example can be written.
Example 1: As a result, the colonists willingly gave up their oppressed lives in England, in order to live freely in a new land that was completely unfamiliar to them.Example 2: Hence, the colonists’ desire to worship freely and escape punitive taxes was much more appealing than continuing to live under the authoritarian system of intolerance that was commonplace in England.Both examples 1 and 2 summarize the content of the paragraph without adding any new information.
Each example restates the key ideas in the paragraph and brings closure at the end.Let’s also look at an example of how NOT to write a concluding sentence for this paragraph:Example 3: As a matter of fact, colonists from other countries were also considering a move to the New World for various reasons.Example 3 doesn’t work as a concluding sentence because it has started a completely different topic. The original paragraph focused only on the reasons for which the English colonists wanted to settle in the New World.
Bringing in colonists from other countries in the final sentence would confuse the reader and take the paragraph in a completely different direction.
Lesson Summary
A concluding sentence indicates that you are bringing closure to a paragraph. For each paragraph, the reader should be able to identify what your key points are, based on the concluding sentence. It should not include any information that was not discussed in the paragraph. Concluding sentences can start out with phrases such as ‘In conclusion,’ ‘Thus,’ and ‘For this reason.’
Quick Notes
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A concluding sentence:
- Should indicate closure for a paragraph
- Should remind the reader of the paragraph’s main points
- Should not include any new information
Learning Outcomes
Examine this lesson on concluding sentences so that you can subsequently:
- State the purpose of a concluding sentence
- Identify concluding sentence starters
- List some of the indicators of a concluding sentence
- Assess correct and incorrect concluding sentences
