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Tips for Writing Awesome Conclusions

  • March 20 2015
  • Comments Off on Tips for Writing Awesome Conclusions
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As you write an article or blog post, you have a lot to consider. First, you need to hook your reader with a spectacular introduction because without that first “wow” statement, many readers will simply move on to another article. Once you have them hooked, you need to back up what you say throughout the body. But, your job is not done there; you still need to leave them with a powerful feeling at the end, which is where your conclusion comes into play. If you just stop dead in your tracks after the body or repeat what was already said throughout the article or blog post, your impact gets lost in translation. Instead, make your conclusion powerful, thought provoking, and action minded.

 

 

Avoid Plagiarizing Yourself

One mistake many writers make is restating what was previously said in the article, which in a sense is plagiarizing your own words. No one wants to hear repeated thoughts – what is so thought provoking about that? Instead, you want to go back over what you said but in different words. This gives the reader something to think about and repeats the notions that you already spoke about in the body, but in a more aggressive way, to allow it to stick in the reader’s mind. This portion of your conclusion should be done in a maximum of 2 sentences, allowing you to move on the second half of your conclusion.

 

 

Why Should the Reader Care?

This is a question you should ponder as you write your conclusion. When it is complete, see if it answers the question, “why do I care?” If your conclusion simply summarizes the previously written information, there is little for the reader to care about. Instead, your conclusion should have pointers in it that leave the reader with something to ponder, which can be done in the second half of the paragraph. This is where you give your article and/or blog post impact because it sticks in the mind of the reader long after he has read it. If you are unsure if your conclusion is thought provoking enough, ask yourself, “so then what?” If you find that your conclusion can keep going on because you have not given a final answer, you should rewrite it to get your point across in the appropriate amount of sentences.

 

 

Show a Solution to the Problem

If your article is focused on a problem, you likely introduced the problem in the beginning of the piece, and talked about various ways the problem surfaces or ways to solve it. If your article went in many different directions, you need to bring the reader back to the start; think of it as going full circle – the problem was introduced, the evidence was provided, and now a concrete solution needs to surface. This is where your conclusion paragraph comes into play. You want there to be no doubt in the reader’s mind that your solution is the only solution. This means you need to use powerful words and even promote a course of action in order to make your work worth reading. This course of action could be something as simple as giving the reader something to ponder, or it could mean giving the reader an idea to spark his own research and/or simply spark up thought provoking conversations.

 

 

How Conclusions Differ for Blog Posts

Each of these suggestions for writing a conclusion has pertained to articles; blog posts will bring about a little different approach. The first half of the conclusion paragraph for a blog post will remain the same; however, you still want to summarize in two sentences or less the point you were trying to achieve throughout the entire post. The second half, on the other hand, should promote a course of action. This could be one of several things: asking them to use the tips you provided in the blog post in their own lives; asking them to spread word about your blog, social media page or company in general; or even asking a thought provoking question that encourages readers to leave comments, which can help the ranking of your blog post with the search engines.

 

The conclusion paragraph is just as important as your introduction as it is a way to wrap things up in your reader’s mind. Before you start writing, stop and think about what you want to accomplish with your article or blog post. Are you trying to solicit a course of action or are you just providing a thought provoking piece? Once you know the angle you want to take, you can make it happen with the right conclusion paragraph. Now that you know how to write powerful closing paragraphs, you will likely see a difference in the engagement and impact of the pieces that you write.

 

 

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Cameron Mackey

Cameron is the Content Manager for the Vorongo Blog. He has spent three years in various content marketing roles. When he is not working with Vorongo he enjoys photography and hiking.

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