Conclusions

Writing a conclusions section is another difficult piece of technical writing. Like writing introductions, there are several rules of thumb to be adopted. The best way to learn these are by reading journal articles in your fields. Take notes on how the conclusion has been broken down - this style is what you are trying to replicate.

Conclusions can be shorter than the introduction but not too short. Certainly at least 3-4 lengthy paragraphs.

Short conclusions make a piece of writing look weak, and badly thought through. The conclusions should contain your take home message; if this is weak, confused, shallow or short, why should we even have bothered reading this chapter?

In the conclusions you need to sum up what you have argued and the key points, and also draw together how this connects to the wider themes / arguments of the thesis as a whole. Don’t introduce new ideas or material in a conclusions section.

This section will be written repeatedly over the the three years, and will be much more tightly written once you have a draft of all 7/ 8 chapters in your thesis, so don’t get distracted by trying to perfect this until you reach the final stages. You will then return to all your conclusions in every chapter to write a paragraph that opens out to what is to come.

At this stage, the aim is to sum up for your reader (your supervisor) why this chapter was important to read and how it contributes to your original contribution.

Today I will…

• Think about how I write my conclusions section of the chapter, and if the chapter has been written, re-write the conclusions according the advice here;

• Write for 2 hours minimum on my PhD working down my task list.