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Friday, January 4, 2013

Don't

begin your concluding paragraph with the words, "In conclusion." If you don't know why you shouldn't do this, you can ask me, but it should be obvious.

3 comments:

Lennin said...

Could you elaborate? I'm not a scholar but on e-mails I often write a long explanation and then add an "In summary" paragraph briefing the situation and my conclusion.

Jonathan said...

I was talking about scholarly articles, not emails. If your last paragraph of an 9,000 word essay begins with the words "In conclusion..." it sounds very bush league, like you think you have to write those words so people will know it's your conclusion. Normally, too, the conclusion itself would be several paragraphs, not one.

Andrew Shields said...

I much prefer "in conclusion" at the end of a student essay to some of the alternatives, such as "summing up" or "we can say that" ... but I see your point that it's "bush league."