General Conclusion form (.pdf)

Name: Convincing Conclusions (General Purpose)
Review: The job of a conclusion is to do the following…
Review: Summarize for your
reader your thesis and the
most compelling evidence
and points you have made
to support your thesis.
When writing about
literature, it is good to
include AFT here as well
(author, form and title).
Connect: Look back over all
the evidence you’ve
offered: what is the
“common thread” which
connects all of these points?
This will often take the form
of a generalization or
conclusion you can draw
based on the evidence you
have provided.
Extend: Consider the
connection—the common
thread—you identified in
the previous section. How is
this generalization or
conclusion universal? How
does it extend beyond this
essay to a universal Truth or
statement about society,
human experience, or a
greater context?
Echo: After transitioning
from your “extend” section,
use a “stinger” at the end of
your essay—and make sure
that the stinger uses the
same rhetorical device that
you use in your
introduction’s hook. If you
opened with a narrative,
conclude the narrative here;
if you opened with a
question, close with either
the answer or a follow-up
(more complex) question.

Example Introductions and Conclusions: Label the key parts of each…
Introduction: Hook, Bridge, Synopsis, Thesis
Conclusion: Review, Connect, Extend, Echo
Private First Class Paul Berlin could
only hear the thunder of his own heartbeat
in his ears. The vivid images bombarded
his mind: the explosion, the blood, the
smoke, the fire. Berlin had no idea the
reaction that this memory would bring out
in him. In Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam war
short story “Where Have You Gone,
Charming Billy?” PFC Berlin experiences
his first few days in country. On his first
day, he watches a man die not of warfare,
but of a fear-induced heart attack. Berlin
retreats into his memories and daydreams
to cope with his fear, but the irony of Billy
Boy Watkins’s death is too much for PFC
Paul Berlin. Berlin’s reaction to Watkins’s
death illustrates the irony of war and how
during war, fear becomes a paradox.
Life and blood are inseparable concepts.
Without blood coursing through one’s
veins, life cannot be sustained. However, in
William Shakespeare’s tragic play
Macbeth, blood represents not life, but
something more sinister. Set in Scotland,
Macbeth chronicles the misguided efforts
of Macbeth, a thane (like a duke), who is
prompted by the prophesies of three
strange witches and the ambition of his
wife to murder King Duncan in order to
become King himself. However, as in all
tragedies, things do not go according to
plan. After murdering Duncan, both
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth experience
crippling guilt that ends them. This guilt is
symbolized throughout the play by
Shakespeare’s blood imagery.
While at war, PFC Paul Berlin in Tim
O’Brien’s short story “Where Have You
Gone, Charming Billy?” reveals the paradox
of wartime fear by laughing hysterically at
the absurdity of Billy Boy’s death. Berlin’s
very obsession with fear turns ironic when it
is that very fear, not a bullet or bomb, which
ends up taking Billy Boy’s life. Berlin’s two
reactions, first daydreaming and then
unstoppable laughter, illustrate an attempt to
cope with the paradoxical ironies inherent in
war. Ultimately, fear underlies both of these
reactions, showing fear can inspire
unexpected and even contradictory
responses. As the fear overtakes PFC Paul
Berlin, laughter overtakes him as well. The
supreme irony of dying from fright while a
soldier in a war zone sends him into
hysterics. But when the laughter stops, the
fear remains.
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the guilt that
both Macbeth and his wife feel for the
murder of King Duncan is overwhelming—
and Shakespeare symbolizes this guilt
through imagery of blood. Through all these
examples, the blood serves as a constant
reminder of Macbeth’s and Lady Macbeth’s
actions, literally staining them with guilt.
This symbolic guilt is visible only to the
guilty parties themselves. Through his
torment of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth,
Shakespeare uses the blood symbolism to
illustrate how guilt can stain a human being
permanently, forever coloring their
existence from the moment of the offense
onward. In effect, then, life and blood are
still in fact inseparable concepts in this play.
However, in Shakespeare’s view, it is not
that blood is life-giving, but that blood on a
guilty hand can be life-staining.