The conclusion of your essay should restate and summarize the major points you made in the body of your paper. It should also restate the thesis or main idea of the paper. However, when you craft the restatements of these ideas, make sure to craft them using different words compared to what you used in the body and introduction — or as different as you can make them. This will keep your reader interested.

You can use the conclusion of your paper to do several things in addition to restating the main ideas. You can use an important quotation, make suggestions, call for action on a particular issue or topic, or compare to other situations. In doing these things, you will give your reader a sense of closure knowing that this is the end of your paper. Overall, understand that in the conclusion, you should not introduce any new ideas. The purpose is to sum up the paper and give it an ending.