The conclusion is where you explain the importance and significance of your results and their implications, as well as recommendations. It is the last section of your research paper or scientific paper. It can be seen as more or less an extension of the Discussion. It serves the exact opposite purpose of the Introduction.
In the Introduction, you contextualize your study. In doing so, you compare it to other studies and other results. You may even predict how your results will compare to that of others. Lastly, you will explain the importance or relevance of your study to the wider society.
In the conclusion, you report on how things turned out in terms of the expectations you laid out in the introduction. This means you’re supposed to provide a Summary, give an account of the Limitations of the study, explain its Implications, and provide Recommendations.
In this article, I will examine each of these elements. Read on to learn more.
What to include in the conclusion
In the conclusion, you report on your results. This includes the 1. Summary, where you give an objective and brief description of the study in terms of methods and results; 2. Implications, which means the relevance and importance of your results; 3. Limitations, which describe the shortcomings of your study; and 4. Recommendations, which explain how the results can be turned into policy and future research directions.
When writing the Conclusion, you should be brief and clear. You should also refrain from overinterpreting. Do not make your results more important than they are. Also, do not give interpretations that are not logically based on your results. Lastly, your policy recommendations should not be too ambitious and should be based on practicality.
The value of a published scientific paper rests heavily on your ability to connect your research to real-world problems. Your conclusion allows you to do just that.
1. Summary
In the summary, you are supposed to give an accurate and brief account of your study. This means explaining the methods and an overview of the results. Here, you have to be objective. This is not the time and place to include interpretations and opinions. For example:
We carried out a study examining the relationship between age and attitudes toward environmentalism. Three thousand respondents across the United States were studied, and the results showed that younger people were much more likely to support environmental policy than older ones.
Think of the summary as laying the foundation for your recommendations and implications. Implications and recommendations, after all, should be placed on a factual basis. So focus on being brief and objective.
2. Implications
Implications refer to the relevance of your study. Mabe your study challenges established perspectives or viewpoints in your field of study. If so, that would make your research “a big deal.”
In certain fields of study, your research may have practical and economic implications. For example, researchers discovered a new method to improve the production of artificial or lab-grown diamonds.
Such a discovery would have significant implications for the diamond or jewelry industry. It might make diamonds much cheaper and may severely impact the natural diamond industry. This type of dynamic should be stated in your conclusions.
3. Limitations
The limitations refer to aspects of your study that could have made your study better. For example, if the sample population in the study wasn’t large enough, then it may mean that your results are not sufficiently representative.
You should not hide these limitations. They should be plainly stated. This does not take away from your research and study. It simply lays out a path for future research either for yourself or for other researchers.
4. Recommendations and future research directions
Recommendations are usually made up of two aspects:
Recommendations to improve future study ideas
Policy recommendations based on the results
Recommendations on future research direction or studies are typically based on the limitations of the study. After acknowledging the limitations of your study, you should follow-up by saying how they could have been solved or even better yet how researchers in the future could help solve these problems.
For policy recommendations, you should suggest what policy should be adopted both by industry experts and policymakers based on the results of your study. These recommendations should be based on careful logic and assessment. Moreover, the focus should be on practicality.
This may require further reading than your immediate field of study. You may have to be “wise” beyond your field of study to be in a position to make policy recommendations that are either relevant to modern industry or business or to government policymakers.
In the following section, I include an example of a study that has all four of the components of a conclusion.
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Example of conclusion
Summary |
In this study, we sought to determine the effectiveness of PBL learning approaches on students’ outcomes in terms of the perception of the importance of three statistics-related courses. Students appeared to believe that the most advanced course—Forecasting in Business—was the most important in terms of both Importance of Learning Statistics and Importance of Using Statistical Applications at Work in the Future. However, all the other courses had higher ratings in terms of perceived levels of importance (>8.5).
Implications |
The prominence of Forecasting in Business in terms of importance may be explained by the fact that this course is practical in the sense that it prepares students for the world of work or for their desired professions in business. Such a course would better serve the purposes of PBL approaches, as PBL seeks to contextualize education in the real world, including professional contexts [9,10]. This means that even basic introductory courses should seek to make their content and teaching methods more relatable to students in terms of practicality and usefulness in work.
Limitations |
The study had a few limitations. The study is exploratory and ongoing. Therefore, a number of results have not been included, such as the self-evaluation of students in terms of performance, as compared to their actual results. Furthermore, there was a lack of a control group.
Recommendations and future research directions |
A more ideal study would include an experimental control group that experienced PBL methods and a control group that did not experience PBL methods. Additionally, a longitudinal approach, comparing past student performance in the absence of PBL methods versus current student performance with PBL methods would also be useful. We plan to incorporate such approaches in the future aspects of this ongoing study.
Think of your conclusion as providing a proper landing for the readers of your essay or scientific paper. After giving a faithful and objective account of your study and its limitations, you should proceed to take off your scientist or researcher hat and speak directly to the wider public.
You are doing more than simply addressing fellow researchers who will read your paper in a journal. If you are a student, think of yourself as addressing an audience larger than just your professor. You should explain as much as possible the practical implications and reliance of your research. Good luck with your research writing!
Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2024, August 24). How to Write a Conclusion. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/how-to-write-a-conclusion |
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