An argumentative essay should normally finish with a conclusion and sometimes, depending on the subject, with conclusions and recommendations. The conclusions and recommendations (if there are any) should be placed in the last paragraph(s).

Good conclusions are often difficult to write. It is best to leave them until you have finished the first draft of the paper, so that you have a complete sense of the argument as you have presented it. Now you are ready to leave the reader with some final concluding thoughts.

In thinking about how to write a conclusion, you might benefit from considering the following ideas:

1. The conclusion should not continue the argument by introducing new material. It is a place to sum up the argument which has come to an end in the final paragraph of the main body of the argument. Hence, you should never introduce new points in the conclusion.

2. The main purpose of the conclusion is to sum up the argument, to re-emphasize the thesis, and to leave the reader thinking about the importance of the argument, perhaps in a wider context. In a sense, its purpose is the reverse of the introduction: the conclusion moves the reader from the particular emphasis of the argument and takes it out into a wider context (if this seems confusing, check some of the examples below).

3. There are a number of things a writer should be careful not to do in the concluding paragraph. You should not, as mentioned, suddenly introduce a new point, nor should you disqualify the argument you have just presented with a comment like "But all this is just my opinion," or "But I really don't know that much about the subject." Make sure the conclusion is a confident reassertion of the main point of the argument.

4. Here are some things you might do in a conclusion: you can sum up the argument you have conducted and re-emphasize the thesis you set down at the beginning, you can move back from the specific focus and place the argument in a larger context (see example below), you can leave the reader with some specific recommendations or questions to think about, or you can point to the future and invite the reader to consider what you have said in that context.

Here are some sample conclusions. Notice how the writer does not continue the argument (which is over) but tends to draw back to place the issue in a wider perspective and, at the same time, to reinforce for the reader the central argument which the essay has been presenting.

Conclusion C (from an essay arguing that the only rational solution to our narcotics problem is to legalize all drugs)

Surely it's time we recognized the facts of life: that our efforts to stamp out illegal narcotics are only succeeding in enriching organized crime, providing the police with dangerous new powers, filling our prisons with young people, and encouraging many others to break the law. And, as I have mentioned, we need to remember that the narcotics we are trying to stamp out are less dangerous than many legal substances in widespread use. So instead of devising new utopian and increasingly expensive and futile schemes to eliminate drugs, we should move at once to change the law and to make cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and their derivatives as legal as tobacco, alcohol, Valium, and Ritalin.

Notice carefully what each writer does in the above samples.