How to Write the Conclusion Chapter of a Dissertation or Thesis

So you have finished the bulk of your dissertation or thesis project.  Congratulations! Now all you have to do is write the conclusion of your paper and you will be done.  What kind of things should you keep in mind while writing the conclusion chapter of a report or thesis?

There are several goals that the conclusion of a college report should try to achieve.  The first is to talk about whether or not the research project that you undertook achieved its aims.  Remind the reader of the goal of the report, which you laid out at the beginning of the document paper.  Review the steps which you took throughout the research process, as well as any kind of problems you ran into, issues that affected the course of the research or ways in which the research process turned.  Finally, explain the results that were received from the research.  Was the research successful?  What were your main findings and how do they affect your current views?  Try to put the findings that you have made in the greater context and show how the research that you engaged in during your project relates to issues in the greater world.

Next, continue to relate the results of your dissertation project to the real world by talking about any recommendations that you can make based on what you have learned.  Do the results of your research suggest a particular course of action that specific people should take?  If so, are the people aware of the results of your research, and if not are you going to take steps to make them so?  What kind of further research are you going to suggest that could continue to broaden our collective understanding of the research topic you have chosen?  Give the reader a sense of what the future could be like in terms of researching your topic, and present some beginning ideas for what the next step could be, if you have any.

Also, make any observations that you can at this point about the research process itself.  Which aspects of your research methodology bore the most fruit?  What gave you the most accurate results?  If you had to start over from scratch knowing what you do now, what kind of advice would you give your former self to decide on how to structure your research process and what to do?  What parts of your research would you devote further time or resources to, given the chance?  Are there specific areas in which you yourself intend to undergo further explorations of the topic and further study?  If so, what are they and how would your new research methods compare to your old research methods?  

Finally, the conclusion of a college report should close your thesis paper by summarizing everything that has come before, explaining in simple terms the way in which the project ended, relating it to the greater environment of the world at large, and leaving the reader with the ability to draw his or her own conclusions from what you have described.  

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