Last impressions count –
Picture this: your examiner has just spent a week reading your thesis (yes –
Then they get to the conclusion and see that it is badly written. It seems unclear and hasn’
Awful, right? Well, it happens a lot. The conclusion is the last thing the examiner reads and has a lasting impact on how they see the whole thesis.
In this guide, I explain to you in clear and simple terms how to write a superstar PhD thesis conclusion. One that really impresses your examiner and gives your thesis the send-off it deserves.
There are lots of guides out there that explain how to write a PhD thesis conclusion, but few that explain how to write outstanding conclusions.
The purpose of a conclusion
You can see from your PhD Writing Template that a PhD conclusion should achieve six objectives:
Answer the research questions
Show how you have addressed your aims and objectives
Explain the significance and implications of your findings
Explain the contribution the study makes
Explain the limitations of the study
Lay out questions for further research
These are the basics and you probably know them already.
The problem is that most guides I’
That’
How to write a superstar conclusion
Think of reading a PhD thesis being like a journey.
At the beginning, you –
You talk in terms of hypotheses and potentials. The tone is one of: ‘
As you go through the empirical chapters you begin to introduce a bit more certainty into your discussion. You start to change from ‘
But –
As a result, you are now the expert in your field. You have scoped out the potential, jumped into the field and achieved your objectives.
There are two things to consider if you want to write a superstar conclusion.
1. Own your research
So, in the conclusion, start talking like an expert. Showcase your expertise and show your examiner that you are worthy of being called Doctor. If you don’
Well, answering the six questions above is imperative. But, most importantly, you need to really drive home the contribution that the thesis has made. Regardless of whether you can see it or not, your thesis contributes something to the field. It might be a new methodology, a new application of theory onto an existing body of data or sample, or a contradiction of established ways of thinking. Whatever it is, you need to shout about it. Loudly. Like an expert.
If you hesitate and remain vague, the examiner will see this. Sure, you might think that the research could have been better. Sure, you messed up that one experiment. Sure, you aimed to find one thing but ended up finding another. But focus on those shortcomings later, after you have told the reader about all the fantastic contributions you have made (however small –
While you’
A conclusion that fails to relate the findings to the literature is an incomplete conclusion. You spent pages and pages neatly carving out a gap in the literature
2. See the thesis, not the detail
A superstar conclusion is one that doesn’
Each chapter is a piece of the puzzle and only when they are all slotted together do you have an entire thesis. That means that a great conclusion is one that shows that the thesis is bigger than the sum of its individual chapters.
The conclusion is not the time to get lost in words and talk in lengthy detail about particular theoretical, empirical or methodological issues
So, rather than get bogged down in detail, your job is to reflect back on your original aims and intentions and discuss them in terms of your findings and new expertise.
It also means summarising your thesis in a way that is free of unnecessary detail and is easy to understand.
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Three things not to do in a conclusion
1. Don’
Somewhere in your conclusion, you need to have an executive summary of your entire thesis. Our PhD writing template can help with this, as it forces you to write a synopsis of each chapter which you can add together for a summary of the thesis.
Note, though, that there’
A quick summary or recap of the findings is sufficient, not a lengthy restatement. The same is true with your theory framework or literature review. Recap, don’
2. Don’
The job of the conclusion then is to summarise and recap, not to introduce new material. If you feel the need to include new empirical material or new literature here, don’
The conclusion will certainly talk back to your literature review or empirical data, in the sense that it will seek to fulfil certain objectives and address a gap in the literature. The point is that you need to state your objectives and discuss the gap in the literature earlier in the thesis. You use the conclusion to relate the empirical findings to those objectives and to that gap. The literature review and theory framework lay out the objectives and aims of the research, whereas the conclusion discusses how you have met those objectives and aims. It will neither lay out new objectives or aims (using new literature), nor will it do the job of fulfilling those aims (by presenting new empirical data). It will merely explain in clear terms how you have done those things elsewhere in the text.
3. Don’
Remember earlier when we discussed not owning your research and speaking as an authority? One way to fail at this is to over-generalise or to pretend that your thesis does more than it actually does.
There is no shame in focusing in on a very specific contribution. It’
Don’
Conclusion
A conclusion that fails to explain the contribution, that fails to recap and that fails to focus on the entire thesis rather than the detail will leave the reader unsatisfied.
The conclusion needs to wrap up the research. It needs to clearly state the answers to the research questions and lay out in clear, undisputed terms the contribution that you are making. Fail to do this and you’
Do it well, and the examiner will already think you’
There are two things to consider if you want to write a superstar conclusion.
Discuss your main conclusion(s) in a few sentences. Discuss the approach to the solution
What should a technical thesis'
I can't speak for other CS students but I personally don't have much imagination regarding what to write sometimes. I have nearly finished finalizing my thesis regarding a Rubik's Cube Solver I have developed.
I'm having trouble writing the overall conclusions of the paper. The chapter is titled "
Any recommendations would be brilliant. THANK YOU!
p.s. Supervisor is busy marking work, thus does not reply as fast as the stack-exchange. I have emailed him regardless.
I'm having trouble writing the overall conclusions of the paper. The chapter is titled "
A quick summary or recap of the findings is sufficient, not a lengthy restatement. The same is true with your theory framework or literature review. Recap, don’
The job of the conclusion then is to summarise and recap, not to introduce new material. If you feel the need to include new empirical material or new literature here, don’
The conclusion will certainly talk back to your literature review or empirical data, in the sense that it will seek to fulfil certain objectives and address a gap in the literature. The point is that you need to state your objectives and discuss the gap in the literature earlier in the thesis. You use the conclusion to relate the empirical findings to those objectives and to that gap. The literature review and theory framework lay out the objectives and aims of the research, whereas the conclusion discusses how you have met those objectives and aims. It will neither lay out new objectives or aims (using new literature), nor will it do the job of fulfilling those aims (by presenting new empirical data). It will merely explain in clear terms how you have done those things elsewhere in the text. Remember earlier when we discussed not owning your research and speaking as an authority? One way to fail at this is to over-generalise or to pretend that your thesis does more than it actually does. There is no shame in focusing in on a very specific contribution. It’
Don’
A conclusion that fails to explain the contribution, that fails to recap and that fails to focus on the entire thesis rather than the detail will leave the reader unsatisfied. The conclusion needs to wrap up the research. It needs to clearly state the answers to the research questions and lay out in clear, undisputed terms the contribution that you are making. Fail to do this and you’
Do it well, and the examiner will already think you’
There are two things to consider if you want to write a superstar conclusion.
Discuss your main conclusion(s) in a few sentences. Discuss the approach to the solution
I can't speak for other CS students but I personally don't have much imagination regarding what to write sometimes. I have nearly finished finalizing my thesis regarding a Rubik's Cube Solver I have developed. I'm having trouble writing the overall conclusions of the paper. The chapter is titled "
Any recommendations would be brilliant. THANK YOU! p.s. Supervisor is busy marking work, thus does not reply as fast as the stack-exchange. I have emailed him regardless. 2. Don’
3. Don’
Conclusion
What should a technical thesis'