How to Write a Conclusion: Conclusion Starters, 10 Examples and a Template

Argumentative, persuasive, expository and compare-and-contrast conclusions

Argumentative (later high school start times): "The evidence for later high school start times is not that teenagers dislike early mornings — they dislike most mornings — but that districts which delayed the bell by even thirty minutes measured fewer tardy arrivals and fewer students reporting chronic fatigue, against a transportation cost smaller than opponents predicted. A schedule change that costs a few adjusted bus routes for a measurable drop in fatigue-related absences is not an inconvenience; it is a trade worth making."

Persuasive (phones in elementary classrooms): "Elementary classrooms are not the place to test how well eight-year-olds can self-regulate around a device built to capture attention for a living. Schools that removed personal phones from elementary classrooms report calmer transitions between subjects and fewer disciplinary interruptions, without a single new rule beyond the phone leaving the room. A policy this simple, with this little downside, does not need a pilot program — it needs a start date."

Expository (how a 3D printer builds an object): "From a digital file to a finished object, a 3D printer builds through the same three stages regardless of what it prints: slicing the model into layers, laying down material one layer at a time, and cooling each layer before the next begins. Skipping or rushing any stage — a bad slice, an uneven layer, too little cooling — explains nearly every failed print, which is why the process, not the printer's price, usually decides the result."

Compare and contrast (e-books vs print): "E-books and print books serve reading in different ways rather than one replacing the other: an e-book wins on portability and instant access, while a print book wins on the sustained, distraction-free attention research on reading comprehension still favors. A reader choosing between them is not choosing a winner — they are choosing which trade-off matters more for what they are about to read."

Margin noteNote (argumentative): The first sentence restates the claim against its most common misreading and folds the tardiness and fatigue evidence into one clause; the second extends it to a trade a school board can weigh.

Margin noteNote (persuasive): The position returns in new words, the evidence arrives in one sentence, and the close is a call to action (a start date), an ending persuasive essays can use and expository ones cannot.

Margin noteNote (expository): The three stages come back as one sentence rather than three paragraphs, and the extension (process over price) explains a pattern instead of arguing for a choice.

Margin noteNote (compare and contrast): It states what each format wins, then extends to what the comparison means for a reader's choice, without adding a third format or a new point of comparison.

Literary analysis, rhetorical analysis and narrative conclusions

Literary analysis: "Lee uses the mockingbird in To Kill a Mockingbird as a standing symbol for harmless people hurt by others who never answer for the damage. Tom Robinson and Boo Radley both become mockingbirds in that sense, and the title stops reading as a nature reference once the novel's events make the metaphor explicit."

Rhetorical analysis: "Kennedy's inaugural address builds its most quoted line — 'ask not what your country can do for you' — on a single antithesis, and that structure does more persuasive work than the words themselves. Antithesis forces a listener to hold two opposed ideas in mind at once, which is why the line still gets quoted on its own, stripped of the paragraph around it, more than sixty years later."

Narrative: "I stalled that car eleven times in a grocery store parking lot before I understood the clutch was not a brake with extra steps. My father never once raised his voice through any of the eleven stalls, which taught me more about patience than the driving itself did — a lesson I did not recognize until years later, teaching someone else the same clutch in the same lot."

Margin noteNote (literary analysis): It restates the reading of the symbol, joins the two characters in one sentence, and extends to what the title means once a reader sees the pattern.

Margin noteNote (rhetorical analysis): It names the device and its effect on a listener, then extends to why the line outlived the speech, a claim about the strategy rather than the politics.

Margin noteNote (narrative): It extends through a callback to the parking lot instead of a stated claim, which is normal for the genre.

Research paper, lab report and short-essay conclusions

Research paper: "Four-day school weeks save rural districts money on transportation and staffing, but the districts in this sample that adopted the schedule saw no consistent gain in standardized test scores, and several reported new strain on families needing a fifth day of childcare. Cost savings alone do not justify the switch; a district considering it should weigh the childcare gap as seriously as the budget line it is meant to fix."

Lab report: "The trial data confirms the period of a simple pendulum depends on its length, not its mass: two bobs of different mass but equal length returned matching periods within the experiment's margin of error, while doubling the string length increased the period by the square-root relationship the formula predicts. The small deviations recorded at wider swing angles are consistent with the small-angle assumption the formula requires, not a measurement error."

Short essay (around 300 words): "None of this means libraries should resist new tools — most already lend e-books and teach coding alongside the stacks. It means the case for public libraries was never really about the books. It was about access, judgment and a room with no purchase required, three things a phone cannot provide on its own, however large its screen."

Margin noteNote (research paper): It restates the finding with its limit ("in this sample"), weighs the savings against the childcare gap in one sentence, and extends to what a district should do next.

Margin noteNote (lab report): It states what the data confirms or contradicts, not a general reflection — the closest this genre gets to a "so what" is naming what the result means for the hypothesis being tested.

Margin noteNote (short essay): Three sentences carry all three moves: the restated claim (the case was never about the books), the synthesis (access, judgment, a free room) and the extension (what a phone cannot replace).