how to write a conclusion for history essay

how to write a conclusion for history essay

Crafting an Effective Conclusion for a History Essay

1. Introduction to the Importance of Conclusions in History Essays

Reviewing key points and major investigations in the conclusions of essays accomplishes many important things. It shows that the author is indeed capable of bringing a reasonable conclusion to their arguments. It establishes clearly the bases upon which the author has drawn their final conclusions. And it presents the closing ideas upon which the author wishes the reader to emerge and ponder. Its general effect is the use of a similar sliding scale, but more widely spaced areas of discussion, to show the extent to which more detailed analysis has been used to probe the essential issues of the historical problems under observation throughout the dissertation. The use of a similar sliding scale is important at the conclusion to indicate where more time might have illuminated a poorly understood area or indeed to shine a spotlight on one that has been identified as completely unexplored.

Conclusions are often the most difficult part of an essay to write, and many writers feel that they have nothing left to say after having written a lengthy paper. However, a conclusion is extremely important in a history essay because having a well-written, relevant conclusion provides the final proof that the research undertaken did, in fact, have coherent historical substance. The job of the conclusion is to answer the main question that the essay raises or to show, in an account of the subject, what it is that the essay has intended to do. The conclusion should therefore return the reader to the opening of the essay and take up some of the themes with which the opening began or trace, in historical terms, the trajectory which brought the reader from the questions posed at the outset to their answers found in the conclusion.

2. Key Elements of a Strong Conclusion

Your conclusion should respond effectively to the arguments you have made in your essay. Most importantly, it should provide you with the opportunity to reflect upon your work, to argue for its importance or significance, and to suggest directions for further development and research. The conclusion is also a good place to mention questions about the viability of your argument and whether you could have addressed these in a better fashion. Your conclusion should make your paper rise to the fullness of its subject, to its historical moment, and to the circumstances surrounding its initial inspiration.

Your conclusion should not simply restate your argument or sum up the information in your paper. It is a more complex and multi-dimensional thing than that. At its most sophisticated, the conclusion functions as a kind of mirror to the introduction. Both paragraphs serve to explore the purpose, structure, and significance of a paper with a break that also represents growth and change in the writer’s thinking.

3. Strategies for Writing a Powerful Conclusion

Consider the following conclusion, which reiterates a brief summary of each of the main points covered in the analysis: More job opportunities for teens, benefits for small towns, and a better social environment could all be products of a revision of the child labor laws. The concluding paragraph brings the paper to a proper close without merely ending it.

The conclusion of a paper is your opportunity to remind the reader of the main points of your paper and to show how those points support your thesis. Since your thesis is, presumably, already supported by other details, the new material in your conclusion serves largely to summarize what you’ve already said.

– Avoid introducing new material. The concluding paragraph is not the place to introduce new arguments or information. – Save supporting detail for the body of the paragraph. – Do not make overly broad statements that could apply to any topic.

A conclusion provides a thoughtful end to a piece of writing. Unfortunately, many conclusions in college-level papers are little more than summaries of what has already been said. Here are a few tips to make conclusions more interesting. You may wish to check with your professor about specific recommendations in your field of study. Many fields have specific formats for conclusions and other parts of essays, research reports, and experiments. The points below are most applicable to papers in the humanities:

4. Common Pitfalls to Avoid in Concluding a History Essay

4. Do not simply reword your introduction. While this is a good strategy, you run the risk of diluting your paper. The conclusion should be short and sweet. Thus it is best to close your papers with it. Moreover, it is very difficult to replicate the positivity of the introduction. Even if your arguments are strong, we all know a paper that ends with a voice of sweetness is only convincing to a point so save the most promising, intriguing, strong arguments for your body-the reader should be left with the best points.

3. Do not end your history paper with a trite or irrelevant sentence such as, “In conclusion,” which insults the reader’s intelligence.

2. Do not end the essay with new information. New information in the conclusion should have minimal value. Nothing belongs in the conclusion that does not fit into the essay body. “The Final Battle in Ulysses,” Joyce’s final rendezvous with Molly, demonstrates the heavy animal imagery in “Circe,” especially the image of the defeated sentinel wolfhound.

1. Do not apologize for the conclusion. The purpose of the conclusion is to summarize, but not to apologize. If you apologize – say that you are not an expert in a certain area or that you are limited in your materials – you are indeed apologizing for the massive amount of resources and research that you have just quoted. The best way to deal with having no knowledge of a certain area is to avoid mentioning that area entirely. If you apologize in any way for your resources or failings, the reader feels that you are weak and unsure of yourself.

5. Examples of Well-Written Conclusions in History Essays

In thinking about other actors of international affairs as potential subjects of international law as well, the questions of which post-sovereign actors will manage to work for the public good and how their agents will live up to their goals by ridding themselves of primarily domestic and material interests are left for further research. Here lies a significant task for normative international relations scholarship. What is the role of the state in the destruction of domestic and international public goods? And if the state has potential, but not exclusive, sovereignty is an empirical insight of what international law is, and normative insights regarding what international law should be remain unanswered. During the historical sessions of this year’s conference, the points of contention around contemporary international society and its sovereignty of closure thus reveal multiple directions for future research.

In an interesting step further, political scientists acknowledge the difficulty and argue that asking second-best powers to fulfill their roles in a normative world order mitigates the potential risks of normatively indispensable balances, and hence does not invite a perverse coherence of noncommitment. By providing a coherent normative justification for unipolarity, the institutional sovereignty argument is a highly valuable security and power resource. However, its arguments are exclusively based on the state as a necessary part of the flexible world order.

In conclusion, the continuous importance of the concept of sovereignty in international politics is matched by its uncertainty as a consequence of ongoing and profound international system change associated with forces of globalization, democratization, and the end of the Cold War. While remnants of premodern interpretations of the concept of sovereignty persist and create difficulties for international institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the International Criminal Court, and in the case of defining individuals as legitimate agents of international law, modern interpretations of sovereignty that focus on its institutional character are indeed potent and capable of shaping global order. This institutional interpretation poses few internal dilemmas and offers a broad and compelling rationale for international second-bests, thereby providing solid ground for the normative defense of unipolarity.