The next step in writing your conclusions chapter is to discuss the overall findings of your study , as they relate to the research aims and research questions. For example, you could say something like the following:. This study aimed to investigate the feeding habits of the naked mole-rat. The results indicate that naked mole rats feed on underground roots and tubers. Further findings show that these creatures eat only a part of the plant, leaving essential parts to ensure long-term food stability. Be careful not to make overly bold claims here. Typically, this is achieved by a broader body of research, not a single study — especially not a dissertation or thesis which will inherently have significant and limitations.

This involves talking about what you achieved in your study, highlighting why this is important and valuable, and how it can be used or applied. Be careful to strike a careful balance between being firm but humble in your arguments here. At the same time though, you need to present your arguments with confidence, firmly asserting the contribution your research has made, however small that contribution may be. Simply put, you need to keep it balanced. There are many potential limitations that can apply to any given study. Some common ones include:.

Show the reader that you understand the limitations, that these were justified given your constraints, and that you know how they can be improved upon — this will get you marks. This will largely be built on the limitations you just discussed. Essentially, this section is an opportunity to outline how other researchers can build on your study to take the research further and help develop the body of knowledge. So, think carefully about the new questions that your study has raised, and clearly outline these for future researchers to pick up on. The closing summary should serve as a quick reference for your readers, recapping what you discussed in the conclusion chapter.

Brevity is key here — you only need to include the key takeaways and nothing more. In practical terms, this section should be a paragraph or two max. Need a helping hand? Hopefully, this post has given you some direction and confidence to take on the conclusion chapter of your dissertation or thesis with confidence. This post is part of our research writing mini-course, which covers everything you need to get started with your dissertation, thesis or research project. Your guide on writing the concluding chapter of a research is really informative especially to the beginners who really do not know where to start.

Im now ready to start. Keep it up guys. A very enjoyable, understandable and crisp presentation on how to write a conclusion chapter. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks Jenna. This was a very helpful article which really gave me practical pointers for my concluding chapter. Keep doing what you are doing! It meant a lot to me to be able to have this guide. Thank you so much. Thanks for valuable guidance. I get all my doubts clarified regarding the conclusion chapter. Many thanks. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. What exactly is the conclusion chapter? What should I include in the conclusion chapter? Book An Initial Consultation. Step 1: Craft a brief introduction section As with all chapters in your dissertation or thesis, the conclusions chapter needs to start with a brief introduction.

Step 2: Discuss the overall findings in relation to the research aims The next step in writing your conclusions chapter is to discuss the overall findings of your study , as they relate to the research aims and research questions. For example, you could say something like the following: This study aimed to investigate the feeding habits of the naked mole-rat. Inform the reader on just how your research solves your research problem , and why that matters Reflect on gaps in the existing research and discuss how your study contributes towards addressing these gaps Discuss your study in relation to relevant theories. For example, does it confirm these theories or constructively challenge them? The Dissertation Conclusion should be unique and should be the result of an in-depth research process.

Enlist all the new knowledge that you have attained through your research and the ways through which the new knowledge adds to the process of resolving the concern. While doing so take care of the length of this chapter. In general, it should be a summing up, done in a couple of pages. Any kind of practical or empirical research strives to offer a shorter Conclusion than any theoretical or systematically developed review. Inclusion of Recommendations and Future Research in the Dissertation Conclusion is important. The Recommendations must be such that it holds future perspectives of the research process. This can take half of a page. Always follow the University guidelines to write a Dissertation Conclusion.

Sometimes there is the variation of including the Conclusion along with the Discussion Chapter. While trying to get an insight into - How to write a Dissertation Conclusion — start focussing on the Aim of your research and keep on asking — Why you are engaged in this research? The examples noted below will clarify your perceptions regarding the right way to write a Dissertation Conclusion. At the beginning your Dissertation Conclusion can be:. As stated above, start your conclusion with a direct reference to your research purpose and relate to resolving the research problem. As an example, let us consider a topic on Evaluative Strategies for Developing Agribusiness in the Urban Areas of Ontario. Always remember that to write a Dissertation Conclusion, you must be very particular in avoiding any kind of drawback.

Consider keeping away from the main drawbacks enlisted below:. Thus, write a Dissertation Conclusion with clarity and systematically justify your derivations. A brief summary of the entire research process and mentioning the key derivations are the basic need of the Dissertation Conclusion. Never compromise with that. Phone Number. Helena St. Pierre and Miquelon Sudan Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States United States minor outlying islands Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City State Venezuela Vietnam Virgin Islands British Virgin Islands U.

Published on 9 September by Tegan George and Shona McCombes. Revised on 10 October The conclusion is the very last part of your thesis or dissertation. It should be concise and engaging, leaving your reader with a clear understanding of your main findings, as well as the answer to your research question. Table of contents Discussion vs. conclusion How long should your conclusion be? Step 1: Answer your research question Step 2: Summarise and reflect on your research Step 3: Make future recommendations Step 4: Emphasise your contributions to your field Step 5: Wrap up your thesis or dissertation Full conclusion example Conclusion checklist Frequently asked questions about conclusion sections. While your conclusion contains similar elements to your discussion section , they are not the same thing.

Your conclusion should be shorter and more general than your discussion. Instead of repeating literature from your literature review , discussing specific research results , or interpreting your data in detail, concentrate on making broad statements that sum up the most important insights of your research. As a rule of thumb, your conclusion should not introduce new data, interpretations, or arguments. How long should your conclusion be? Depending on whether you are writing a thesis or dissertation, your length will vary. An empirical scientific study will often have a short conclusion, concisely stating the main findings and recommendations for future research.

A humanities topic or systematic review , on the other hand, might require more space to conclude its analysis, tying all the previous sections together in an overall argument. Your conclusion should begin with the main question that your thesis or dissertation aimed to address. A case study —based thesis or dissertation conclusion may begin like this:. In the second example, the research aim is not directly restated, but rather added implicitly to the statement. To avoid repeating yourself, it is helpful to reformulate your aims and questions into an overall statement of what you did and how you did it. Your conclusion is an opportunity to remind your reader why you took the approach you did, what you expected to find, and how well the results matched your expectations.

To avoid repetition , consider writing more reflectively here, rather than just writing a summary of each preceding section. Consider mentioning the effectiveness of your methodology , or perhaps any new questions or unexpected insights that arose in the process. You may already have made a few recommendations for future research in your discussion section, but the conclusion is a good place to elaborate and look ahead, considering the implications of your findings in both theoretical and practical terms. When making recommendations for further research, be sure not to undermine your own work.

Your work should stand alone on its own merits. Just as you should avoid too much self-criticism, you should also avoid exaggerating the applicability of your research. All in all, the purpose of academic research is to inform, explain, and explore — not to demand. Make sure your reader is left with a strong impression of what your research has contributed to the state of your field. Instead, pick out the most important points and sum them up succinctly, situating your project in a broader context.

The end is near! Here is an example of how you can write your conclusion section. Notice how it includes everything mentioned above:. The current research aimed to identify acoustic speech characteristics which mark the beginning of an exacerbation in COPD patients. The central questions for this research were as follows: 1. Which acoustic measures extracted from read speech differ between COPD speakers in stable condition and healthy speakers? In what ways does the speech of COPD patients during an exacerbation differ from speech of COPD patients during stable periods? All recordings were aligned using a script. Subsequently, they were manually annotated to indicate respiratory actions such as inhaling and exhaling.

The recordings of 9 stable COPD patients reading aloud were then compared with the recordings of 5 healthy control subjects reading aloud. The results showed a significant effect of condition on the number of in- and exhalations per syllable, the number of non-linguistic in- and exhalations per syllable, and the ratio of voiced and silence intervals. The number of in- and exhalations per syllable and the number of non-linguistic in- and exhalations per syllable were higher for COPD patients than for healthy controls, which confirmed both hypotheses.

However, the higher ratio of voiced and silence intervals for COPD patients compared to healthy controls was not in line with the hypotheses. This unpredicted result might have been caused by the different reading materials or recording procedures for both groups, or by a difference in reading skills. Moreover, there was a trend regarding the effect of condition on the number of syllables per breath group. The number of syllables per breath group was higher for healthy controls than for COPD patients, which was in line with the hypothesis. There was no effect of condition on pitch, intensity, center of gravity, pitch variability, speaking rate, or articulation rate.

This research has shown that the speech of COPD patients in exacerbation differs from the speech of COPD patients in stable condition. This might have potential for the detection of exacerbations. However, sustained vowels rarely occur in spontaneous speech. Therefore, the last two outcome measures might have greater potential for the detection of beginning exacerbations, but further research on the different outcome measures and their potential for the detection of exacerbations is needed due to the limitations of the current study.

I have clearly and concisely answered the main research question. I have summarized my overall argument or key takeaways. I have given relevant recommendations. You've written a great conclusion! Use the other checklists to further improve your dissertation. In a thesis or dissertation, the discussion is an in-depth exploration of the results, going into detail about the meaning of your findings and citing relevant sources to put them in context. The conclusion is more shorter and more general: it concisely answers your main research question and makes recommendations based on your overall findings.

Theses and dissertations follow a more formal structure than this. All your findings and arguments should be presented in the body of the text more specifically in the discussion section and results section. The conclusion is meant to summarize and reflect on the evidence and arguments you have already presented, not introduce new ones. For a stronger dissertation conclusion , avoid including:. The conclusion of your thesis or dissertation should include the following:. George, T. How to Write a Dissertation Conclusion Checklist and Examples. Have a language expert improve your writing. Proofreading Services. Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes. Plagiarism Checker. Automatically generate references for free! Reference Generator. Home Knowledge Base Dissertation How to Write a Thesis or Dissertation Conclusion.

How to Write a Dissertation Conclusion Checklist and Examples Published on 9 September by Tegan George and Shona McCombes. In it, you should: Clearly state the answer to your main research question Summarise and reflect on your research process Make recommendations for future work on your topic Show what new knowledge you have contributed to your field Wrap up your thesis or dissertation Table of contents Discussion vs. Prevent plagiarism, run a free check. Try for free. Conclusion The current research aimed to identify acoustic speech characteristics which mark the beginning of an exacerbation in COPD patients.

I have mentioned any important limitations of the research. I have clearly explained what my research has contributed to my field. I have not introduced any new data or arguments. Well done! Return to checklist. Can I present new arguments in the conclusion of my dissertation? How long is a thesis or dissertation conclusion? What should I include in a dissertation conclusion? Is this article helpful? Tegan George Tegan is an American based in Amsterdam, with master's degrees in political science and education administration. While she is definitely a political scientist at heart, her experience working at universities led to a passion for making social science topics more approachable and exciting to students. A well-designed natural experiment is her favorite type of research, but she also loves qualitative methods of all varieties.

Other students also liked. How to Write a Thesis or Dissertation Introduction The introduction leads your reader into the dissertation. Describe the topic, focus, relevance, and objectives of your research. You can also note limitations and make recommendations. It concisely reports your aims, methods, results and conclusions.

In fact, future studies can even build on or enrich your conclusions. Doing so will show that you are aware of opposing perspectives and that you have considered them in your argument. Your conclusion is an opportunity to remind your reader why you took the approach you did, what you expected to find, and how well the results matched your expectations. I have summarized my overall argument or key takeaways. Library Dissertation Topics Dissertation Writing Example Essays Essay Writing Guidelines Harvard Referencing Style Language Rules. You may already have made a few recommendations for future research in your discussion section, but the conclusion is a good place to elaborate and look ahead, considering the implications of your findings in both theoretical and practical terms.

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