This is, after all, your last chance to persuade your readers to your point of view, to impress yourself upon them as a writer and thinker. And the impression you create in your conclusion will shape the impression that stays with your readers after they've finished the essay. Conclude by linking the last paragraph to the first, perhaps by reiterating a word or phrase you used at the beginning. Conclude with a sentence composed mainly of one-syllable words.
Simple language can help create an effect of understated drama.
Conclude with a quotation from or reference to a primary or secondary source, one that amplifies your main point or puts it in a different perspective. For example, you might conclude an essay on the idea of home in James Joyce's short story collection, Dubliners , with information about Joyce's own complex feelings towards Dublin, his home. Or you might end with a biographer's statement about Joyce's attitude toward Dublin, which could illuminate his characters' responses to the city. Conclude by setting your discussion into a different, perhaps larger, context. For example, you might end an essay on nineteenth-century muckraking journalism by linking it to a current newsmagazine program like 60 Minutes .