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3 Rs for Effective Essay Endings
[With acknowledgements to Joanne Buckley's Fit to Print (6th
ed.) for the second and third of the three Rs.]
| Nothing more readily deflates an otherwise solid essay than a concluding paragraph that simply summarizes and repeats the essay's main points. Though some instructors may request that students end their essays this way, this kind of ending is deadening. Your last opportunity to impress your reader is the concluding paragraph or paragraphs. You do not want to end with something that reads like a shopping list. Sure, at the end of a longish essay you may need to revisit your key arguments to remind the reader of how the essay's big idea has been ably addressed and defended. Do so subtly, however, without word-for-word repetition of key points in your discussion. Here to illustrate is the concluding paragraph to a section entitled "The Soldier as Canada," in Jonathan Vance's war history, Death So Noble. In this final paragraph Vance reminds the reader of each of the big ideas treated in the body of his essay without repeating outright the phrases and sentences in which these ideas were cast in his discussion. Key words and phrases such as "humanity of the individual soldier," "uniformed automaton," "peaceful country," and "citizen-soldier" recall the central ideas and arguments of the paper without recourse to repetition. |
The individual soldier, then, was central to the mythologized version of the Great War. Battles were won by men, not machines; tanks and machine guns did not perform acts of gallantry. Establishing the humanity of the individual soldier was crucial because he had to stand for Canada. A tank could not represent the pacific nation called to war from its fields; a uniformed automaton, his identity squeezed out by close-order drill, could not stand for the peaceful country that emerged from its northern isolation to help defend civilization. Only the citizen-soldier who had an identity independent of military structure could do this. |
While a stock, repetitive conclusion invariably brings an essay down, one way to end well is to achieve some rhetorical height in your closing sentences. A well-turned sentence, a concluding idea cogently expressed, is a very effective way of ending an essay. It leaves the reader with a sense of your masterful command of language. The essay is, after all, your attempt to use language precisely, persuasively, compellingly in service of your ideas. Stuck for a suitable ending to an essay you are working on? Opt for a sentence or two that finishes the business with stylistic flourish, and you will leave your reader with a good final impression.
Here, for example, is a stylish ending from an article in the Canadian Military Journal entitled "Ethics and the Military Corporation," by Captain Donald Neill. |
Integrity, valour, loyalty, veracity, duty, honour and so forth have been the touchstone of military service since the medieval evolution of the chivalric ideal, universally aspired to if not always attained. It is imperative that Western military organizations recognize and come to
terms with the corporatist mould that has for the past three decades been perverting the purpose and structure of the ethic of service. Failure to do so will only encourage continued ethical drift at a time when the
profession of arms, throughout the Western world, is desperately seeking an anchor.
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Depending on your topic, one way of effectively concluding is to look beyond the immediate concerns of the paper and consider the implications of the ideas and arguments presented. This is a particularly appropriate ending strategy for any argument that explores a process of change in social or institutional practices.
Here to illustrate is a paragraph from the conclusion to a longish article by RMC historian Dr Ronald G Haycock, published in the Canadian Military Journal, in which he argues for the importance of higher education in the Canadian Forces.
This concluding paragraph looks past the immediate concerns of the paper—growing opportunities to combine education and training in the Forces—to suggest the broader implications of current policies and practices in military education: a more positive identity for the CF resulting from better-trained and better-educated soldiers. |
One could argue that the labours of Athena and the muses in military education represent stages in the maturation of the Canadian Forces. The nation seems more secure in its identity than its military. Some might say the Forces suffered too long from a colonial cringe, in part brought on by the historical baggage and resource reality. It kept the Forces tactical and technical and dependent on others for the view ‘out of the box.' It can be seen in the various limitations in professional development. As military education is finally undergoing substantial renaissance and re-valuation, it may signal the final phase of the CF in throwing off these vestiges and developing institutional independent judgment and identity. In doing so, perhaps it is finally finding its place in Canadian society, much of which has already cleared similar hurdles.
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