conclusion in speech meaning

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9 Closing a Speech: End with Power and Let Them Know It is Time to Clap

Open Your Speech With a Bang Close It With a Slam-Dunk Westside Toastmasters

“Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending,” according to poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The first few words of your speech make the audience want to listen and the last few sentences help them decide what they feel about you and your topic. In this chapter, I will explain the function of a conclusion, the format of a conclusion, and I will give you numerous examples of ways to end your speech. Most of this chapter is dedicated to showing you good examples of different types of speech closings. Let’s get started by talking about the purpose of the closing.

A Strong Closing Does Many Things

Summarizes the points. By restating your points your audience is more likely to remember them.
Tells the audience when to clap. Let’s face it, it is so awkward when you are done with your speech, and no one claps. Being clear the end is near, relieves the audience of the pressure of wondering if they are clapping at the right time.
Provides resolution. Your speech should give the audience a sense of resolve or a sense of being challenged.

The Formula for Closing Most Speeches

Transition statement to ending.
Review the main points–repeat the thesis.
If it is a persuasive speech, tell the audience what you want them to do or think.
Provide a closing statement.

Restate the Thesis

Tell them what you are going to say, say it, tell them what you have said. This speech pattern is useful in most types of speeches because it helps the speaker to remember your key points. As you build your closing, make sure you restate the thesis. A good rule of thumb is to write it in such a way that if the audience were asked to restate the main points, their answer would match closely with your thesis.

EXAMPLE Watch as Stella Young gives her thesis and then restates her thesis at the end of the speech as she wraps up. The thesis of the talk in the introduction: We’ve been sold the lie that disability is a Bad Thing, capital B, capital T. It’s a bad thing, and to live with a disability makes you exceptional. It’s not a bad thing, and it doesn’t make you exceptional. Restates the thesis of the talk at the closing: Disability doesn’t make you exceptional but questioning what you think you know about it does.

Stella Young, I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtPGrLoU5Uk

This next example is from a student’s speech. It is easy to pull out one sentence that clearly summarizes the main points of her speech. Following her summary, she winds the speech down into a thoughtful conclusion and ends with three powerful words.

Now is the time to separate the war on drugs from the war on addiction. T oday you’ve heard the problems, impacts, and solutions of criminalizing addictions. Bruce Callis is 50 years old now. And he is still struggling with his addiction. while you all are sitting out there listening to this, I’m living with it. Bruce Callis is my father and for my entire life, I have watched our misguided system destroy him. The irony here is that we live in a society where we are told to recycle. We recycle paper, aluminum, and electronics. But why don’t we ever consider recycling them most precision think on Earth– the human life. Student Tunnette Powell, Winner of the 2012 Interstate Oratorical Association Contest.

Closing Phrases

After you restate your thesis, you should carefully deliver your closing phrases. Your closing should provide a resolution to your speech and/or it should challenge the audience. Frantically Speaking writer Hrideep Barot suggests “a conclusion is like tying a bow or ribbon to a box of your key ideas that your audience will be taking along with them.”

A speech closing is not just about the words you say, but it is also the way you say it. Change the pace near the end of your speech. Let your tone alone should signal the end is near. It is about deliberate voice control, don’t let your voice weakly away.

In the next section, I will cover these ways to end your speech:

End with powerful words End with a quote End with a graphic End with parallel construction End on a positive note End with a challenge End with a question End with inspiration End with well-wishing End with humor End with a call to action End with a feeling of resolve End with a prop

The best way to teach you about advanced closings is to show not tell. For this section, I will briefly explain each type of closing and then provide a video. Each video is queued so you can play the video and watch the closing statement. I included a transcript under each video if you want to follow along. It will be most beneficial for you to watch the clip and not just read the text. By watching, you will have a chance to hear the subtle changes in the speaker’s voice as they deliver their closing statements.

End with Powerful Words

As you design your closing, look at the last three to five words and examine them to see if they are strong words. Oftentimes, you can rearrange a sentence to end with a powerful word. (I have the video cued to play just the closing)

Watch this clip for how BJ Miller ends with a powerful thought and a powerful word.

Parts of me died early on, and that’s something we can all say one way or another. I got to redesign my life around this fact, and I tell you it has been a liberation to realize you can always find a shock of beauty or meaning in what life you have left, like that snowball lasting for a perfect moment, all the while melting away. If we love such moments ferociously, then maybe we can learn to live well — not in spite of death, but because of it. Let death be what takes us, not lack of imagination. BJ Miller, What Really Matters at the End of Life

End by Circling Back to the Opening

Another type of ending is to circle back to what you said in the beginning. You can revisit a quote, share the end to an illustration that was begun in the beginning, or you can put away a prop you got out in the beginning.

Watch this clip for how Zubing Zhang begins and ends with the same quote to circle back around to the main idea.

She starts by telling a story of bungee jumping off the world’s highest platform and how she saw a sign with a quote that says, “Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone.” After telling her own story about pushing her emotional limits, she circles back around at the end by saying, “As the words said high on the bungee platform, “Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone.”

Yubing Zhang, Life Begins at the End of Your Comfort Zone.

End With Quote

If you end your speech with a quote, attend to the following.

Always say the author of the quote before the quote for example, “I want to leave you with a leadership quote ‘What you do has far greater impact than what you say,’ Steven Covey.” The problem with this ending is that “Stephen Covey” are the last two words of the speech and that is boring. Consider instead this ending. “I think Robin Sharma said it best ‘Leadership is not about a title or a designation. It’s about impact, influence, and inspiration.'” In this arrangement, the last three words are powerful–influence and inspiration.
Provided context for the quote before or after. Make sure the quote is meaningful and not just an easy way to end.

Watch this clip for how Sir Ken Robinson ends with a quote. Notice how he says the author and then the quote.

Also, notice how he then ties his speech to the quote with a final few sentences and ends with the powerful word–“revolution” and how he uses a strong vocal emphasis as he says his last word. (I have the video cued to play just the closing)

There’s a wonderful quote from Benjamin Franklin. “There are three sorts of people in the world: Those who are immovable, people who don’t get it, or don’t want to do anything about it; there are people who are movable, people who see the need for change and are prepared to listen to it; and there are people who move, people who make things happen.” And if we can encourage more people, that will be a movement. And if the movement is strong enough, that’s, in the best sense of the word, a revolution. And that’s what we need.

Sir Ken Robinson, How to Escape Education’s Death Valley.

End with a Graphic

You might want to use a visual to make your final point. Bringing in a picture, graphic, or object, reengages the audience to pay attention to your final ideas.

Watch this clip for how Barry Schartz uses the magic words “so to conclude” and then he creatively uses a picture of a fishbowl to narrow in on his point. Notice how his final word is spoken with urgency as he says “disaster.” (I have the video cued to play just the closing)

So, to conclude. (He shows a picture of fish in a fishbowl) He says, “You can be anything you want to be — no limits.” You’re supposed to read this cartoon and, being a sophisticated person, say, “Ah! What does this fish know? Nothing is possible in this fishbowl.” Impoverished imagination, a myopic view of the world –that’s the way I read it at first. The more I thought about it, however, the more I came to the view that this fish knows something. Because the truth of the matter is, if you shatter the fishbowl so that everything is possible, you don’t have freedom. You have paralysis. If you shatter this fishbowl so that everything is possible, you decrease satisfaction. You increase paralysis, and you decrease satisfaction. Everybody needs a fishbowl. This one is almost certainly too limited –perhaps even for the fish, certainly for us. But the absence of some metaphorical fishbowl is a recipe for misery and, I suspect, disaster. Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice

End with Parallel Construction

Parallel construction is a series of repeated phrases. It can be a powerful tool to use in a persuasive speech as it creates a feeling of importance.

Watch this clip for how Malala Yousafzai ends with a series of parallel statements to build momentum. Notice how her pace perfectly matches her words and you feel her strength when she ends with “education first.” (I have the video cued to play just the closing)

Dear brothers and sisters, we must not forget that millions of people are suffering from poverty, injustice, and ignorance. We must not forget that millions of children are out of schools. We must not forget that our sisters and brothers are waiting for a bright peaceful future. So let us wage a global struggle against illiteracy, poverty, and terrorism, and let us pick up our books and pens. They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one pen, and one book can change the world. Education is the only solution. Education First.

Malala Yousafzai, United Nations Youth Assembly

End on a Positive Note

Audiences are constantly evaluating a speaker to determine their attitude and motivation. As you consider your speech closing, ask yourself what type of impression do you want to leave? Do you want to leave them with depression or hope? Sadness or promise? Most of the time, audiences will receive messages that end positively better than speeches that end negatively.

In this speech sample, Hans Rosling showed the audience some hard statistics and he even pointed fingers at the audience as part of the problem. To help them hear his main point, he wisely ends on a positive note.

Watch this clip for how Hans Rosling ends this thought-provoking talk on a positive note. (I have the video cued to play just the closing)

Now, when thinking about where all this leaves us, I have just one little humble advice for you, besides everything else, look at the data. Look at the facts about the world and you will see where we are today and how we can move forwards with all these billions on our wonderful planet. The challenge of extreme poverty has been greatly reduced and it’s for the first time in history within our power to end it for good. The challenge of population growth is, in fact, already being solved, the number of children has stopped growing. And for the challenge for climate change, we can still avoid the worst, but that requires the richest, as soon as possible, find a way to use their set their use of resources and energy at a level that, step by step, can be shared by 10 billion or 11 billion by the end of this century. I’ve never called myself an optimist, but I do say I’m a possibilist and I also say the world is much better than many of you think.

Hans Rosling, Facts about the Population.

End with a Challenge

Leave the audience with a doable personal challenge. Help them mentally make sense of all the information that you shared by helping them know how to file it away and how to use it.

Watch this clip for how Melissa Butler ends with a challenge. (I have the video cued to play just the closing)

So, I challenge each of you, when you go home today, look at yourself in the mirror, see all of you, look at all of your greatness that you embody, accept it, and love it. And finally, when you leave the house tomorrow, try to extend that same love and acceptance to someone who doesn’t look like you . Melissa Butler, Why You Think You’re Ugly.

Watch this clip as Darren LaCroix literally falls face down to anchor the point that when we fall, we “fall forward.” (I have the video cued to play just the closing)

Darren LaCroix talks about taking risks and falling down and getting back up, he literally and purposefully falls down during his speech and ends this way: What’s your next step… take it. I didn’t want to look back at my life and say you know I never did try that comedy thing, but I died debt-free. All of us are headed toward that goal we are going to teach a point where we get stuck and our feet are like in cement and we can’t move but we’re so afraid of that ouch but we forget that if we lean forward and take a risk–(He falls face down) and we fall on our face. When we get up, notice, you still made progress. So please, with me, go ahead and fall. But fall forward. Darren LaCroiz, Winning Speech delivered at National Speech Association

End with a Question

Asking a question at the end is one way to reengage the audience. It helps them think about what your topic might mean for them.

Watch this clip for how David Eagleman reminds us about why his topic is important and then ends with a question. Notice how he pauses before his final question and how he changes the pace of his speech for the final sentence. (I have the video cued to play just the closing)

So I think there’s really no end to the possibilities on the horizon for human expansion. Just imagine an astronaut being able to feel the overall health of the International Space Station, or, for that matter, having you feel the invisible states of your own health, like your blood sugar and the state of your microbiome, or having 360-degree vision or seeing in infrared or ultraviolet. So the key is this: As we move into the future, we’re going to increasingly be able to choose our own peripheral devices. We no longer have to wait for Mother Nature’s sensory gifts on her timescales, but instead, like any good parent, she’s given us the tools that we need to go out and define our own trajectory. So the question now is, how do you want to go out and experience your universe?

David Eagleman, Can We Create New Senses for Humans?

Watch this clip for how Lera Boroditsky ends with a personal note and a powerful final question. (I have the video cued to play just the closing)

I want to leave you with this final thought. I’ve told you about how speakers of different languages think differently, but of course, that’s not about how people elsewhere think. It’s about how you think. It’s how the language that you speak shapes the way that you think. And that gives you the opportunity to ask, “Why do I think the way that I do?” “How could I think differently?” And also, “What thoughts do I wish to create?” Lera Boroditsky, How Language Shapes the Way We Think

End with Inspiration

“Inspiring your audience is all about helping them see their own vision, not yours.”

You may want to end your speech with inspiring and encouraging words. Pick words that resonate with most of your audience and deliver them in such a way that your audience feels your lift in emotion.

Watch this clip for how Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ends with an inspiring final note and a powerful last few words “regain a kind of paradise” (I have the video cued to play just the closing)

Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity.

I would like to end with this thought: That when we reject the single-story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Danger of a Single Story

Watch this clip for how Dan Pink ends with an inspiring final note. (I have the video cued to play just the closing) Let me wrap up. There is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does. Here is what science knows. One: Those 20th century rewards, those motivators we think are a natural part of business, do work, but only in a surprisingly narrow band of circumstances. Two: Those if-then rewards often destroy creativity. Three: The secret to high performance isn’t rewards and punishments, but that unseen intrinsic drive– the drive to do things for their own sake. The drive to do things cause they matter.

And here’s the best part. We already know this. The science confirms what we know in our hearts. So, if we repair this mismatch between what science knows and what business does, if we bring our motivation, notions of motivation into the 21st century, if we get past this lazy, dangerous, ideology of carrots and sticks, we can strengthen our businesses, we can solve a lot of those candle problems, and maybe, maybe — we can change the world. I rest my case. Dan Pink, The Puzzle of Motivation

End with Well Wishing

There are several types of closings where the speaker wished the audience well.

The Benediction Close: M ay God bless and keep you…. The Presidential Close: God bless you and may God bless the USA The Congratulatory Close: I congratulate you on your accomplishment and wish you continued success.

End with Humor

You can end on a fun lighthearted note. It is important to always run your humor by a variety of people to make sure you are funny, and your humor is appropriate.

Watch this clip for how Andrew Dunham uses humor throughout his speech and ends with a funny one-liner. (I have the video cued to play just the closing)

I wish you all the best as we begin this journey on our paths and I sincerely hope and pray that your time and success have proven to be as memorable and spiritually rewarding as mine. If not, there’s always summer school.

Andrew Dunham, Valedictorian Comes Out As Autistic During Speech

End with a Call to Action

If you are delivering a persuasive speech, let the audience know exactly what you want them to do.

End with a Feeling of Resolve

Paul Harvey made famous the line “And now you know…the rest of the story.” Your closing should allow us to know the rest of the story or to know how a situation was resolved.

Watch this clip for how Lucy Hone ends this tough but inspiring talk with a feeling of resolve (I have the video cued to play just the closing)

https://youtu.be/9-5SMpg7Q0k?t=913 If you ever find yourself in a situation where you think there’s no way I’m coming back from this, I urge you to lean into these strategies and think again. I won’t pretend that thinking this way is easy and it doesn’t remove all the pain. But if I’ve learned anything over the last five years, it is that thinking this way really does help. More than anything it has shown me that it is possible to live and grieve at the same time. And for that I will be always grateful. Lucy Hone, The Three Secrets of Resilient People

End with a Prop

Nancy Duarte says you should give your audience, SOMETHING THEY will ALWAYS REMEMBER–S.T.A.R. One way to do that is with an action or statement that will have the audience talking about it for a long time. President Obama did it with a mic drop.

Memorize Your Conclusion

End on time.

Do not diminish the effect of a great speech with a bloated, aimless conclusion. Dan Rothwell.

“Times about up.”

Don’t end with any references to time. It is like a giant stop sign saying, “stop listening.” Don’t highlight that you ran over time or that it is almost time for lunch. You want them to think about your speech, not the clock.

“Any Questions?”

You want them to feel a sense of closure for your speech. End with something powerful and let them applaud. After the applause, you can offer to answer questions. Similarly, projecting your last slide with the words, “Any Questions” is a weak ending.

“Let Me Add This Point I Missed”

If you forget something in the body of your speech, it is usually best to leave it out. Most of the time you are the only one who will miss it.

“Thank You to the Team”

There is a time to thank the organizers and those who helped you but it is not at the end of your speech. Your focus should be on your audience and what they need and what they need to hear is your idea. Send a thank you letter to the team if you want them to feel your appreciation.

“I’m Sorry”

“Sorry again for the technology issue,” “I apologize for going over time, ” “I regret I have no answer to this.” These are all negative phrases. Keep to your topic that is what they need to hear and stay focused.

“I’ll Close with this Video”

No, you should close with talking about the big idea.

If you don’t have a plan at the end, you will ramble. “Steer clear of meandering endings they kill a story,” according to the Moth Storytelling website. “Your last line should be clear in your head before you start. Yes, bring the audience along with you as you contemplate what transpires in your story, but remember, you are driving the story, and must know the final destination. Keep your hands on the wheel!”

To Thank or Not to Thank, That is the Question

There is a debate amongst speech professionals, speech teachers, and speech coaches about whether or not you should thank the audience. Here are their main arguments.

Why You Should Not Say Thank You

You want to end with powerful words. “Thank you” are not strong words.
The recency effect suggests they will remember the last words you spoke. You want them to remember more than just “thank you.”
It is not a very creative way to end.
It can be a sign of a lazy speaker, “I have no idea how to end this, I’ve run out of good things to say so I’ll say ‘Thank you’ so you will clap now.”

Why You Should Say Thank You

It has come to be the expected ending in many settings. Violating their expectations can cause them to have a negative reaction.
It clearly signals you are finished so the audience knows when to clap. The relieves the pressure from both you and the audience.
It expresses gratitude.

I will leave it up to you to decide what works for you. As for me, I plan on trying to find more creative ways to end other than just saying “thank you.”

Maximizing the Primacy Recency Effect

If I were to read you a list of thirty things on my grocery list and then asked you to list all that you can remember, chances are you would remember the first times on the list and the last items on the list ( and any ones you found interesting from the middle). When people engage in listening, they tend to remember the first and last things they hear, it is called the primacy-recency effect. T his is just one more reason that your introduction and conclusion should be so well planned out. It is those first words and last words that the audience is going to remember.

The primacy recency effect influences, not only what people pay attention to in a speech, but also which speech we pay the most attention to in a series of speeches. For example, if there is a lineup of six speakers, the first and last speakers tend to get the most attention.

As a speaker, you can use this information to your advantage by volunteering to go first or last. If you are giving a long presentation, you can break it up by allowing the audience to move around or talk to a neighbor. When you come back from break, you have re-engaged that primacy effect and moved them back to a high state of attention.

Do You Have Everything You Need for a Strong Closing?

Have I signaled my speech is coming to an end with my words or my voice?
Have I restated my main points?
If I am persuading my audience, do they know what I want them to do or think?
Have I written the last three to five words in such a way that I end with powerful words?
Have I memorized my closing?

Getting Off the Platform is Part of Your Closing

Plan on making a strong exit. Whether you are stepping off a stage or simply going to your seat, you should consider that the audience is watching you.

I have had students who finished their speech and then walked over to the trashcan and in a large, exaggerated movement, they threw their notecards in the trash. In our minds, we threw their message away with those cards. I’ve seen speakers, sit in their chairs and then announce, “I can’t believe my hands were shaking so much.” I’ve sat there and thought, “I didn’t notice.” I then realized that the comments they made influenced my perception of them and my perception of their topic.

You said your last word and the audience is applauding, now what? Look at your audience and smile and nod in appreciation before walking off the stage. If you will be answering questions, wait until after the applause stops to begin your question and answering period.

When practicing your speech, it is a good idea to start from your chair, walk up to a spot and then give your speech, and then walk back to your chair and sit down. Your “speech” impression begins and ends from your chair.

Key Takeaways

Remember This!

A speech closing should include a review of the main points and a purposeful closing sentence.
Persuasive speech endings should tell the audience specifically what they should do or think about.
The recency effect suggests that people remember the most recent things they have heard which is one reason the closing is so important.
Chance the pace of your speech and the tone of your voice to signal the end of the speech.

Please share your feedback, suggestions, corrections, and ideas.

I want to hear from you.

Do you have an activity to include? Did you notice a typo that I should correct? Are you planning to use this as a resource and do you want me to know about it? Do you want to tell me something that really helped you?

Click here to share your feedback.

Adichie, C.N. (2009). The danger of a single story. [Video]. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg Standard YouTube License.

Anderson, C. (2016). TED talks: The official TED guide to public speaking. Mariner Books.

Barot, H. Fifteen powerful speech ending lines (and tips to create your own). Frantically Speaking. https://franticallyspeaking.com/15-powerful-speech-ending-lines-and-tips-to-create-your-own/

Boroditsky, L. (2017). How language shapes the way we think. https://www.ted.com/talks/lera_boroditsky_how_language_shapes_the_way_we_think Standard Youtube License.

Butler, M. (2018). Why you think you’re ugly. [Video]. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imCBztvKgus Standard YouTube License.

Dunham. A. (2019). Valedictorian comes out as autistic during speech. [Video]. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtPGrLoU5Uk Standard Youtube License.

Eagleman, D. (2015). Can we create new senses for humans?[Video]. YouTube https://youtu.be/4c1lqFXHvqI Standard YouTube License.

Hone, L. (2019). The three secrets of resilient people. [Video]. YouTube https://youtu.be/NWH8N-BvhAw Standard YouTube License.

Jeff, P. (2009). Ten ways to end your speech with a bang. http://sixminutes.dlugan.com/10-ways-to-end-your-speech

Jobs, S. (2005). You’ve got to find what you love. https://news.stanford.edu/2005/06/14/jobs-061505/

Khanna, P. (2016). Let the head of TED show you how to end your speech with power. https://www.fastcompany.com/3059459/let-the-head-of-ted-show-you-how-to-end-your-speech-with-p

Karia, A. (2013). How to open and close a TED talk (or any other speech or presentation). https://akashkaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/HowtoOpenandCloseaTEDTalk.pdf

LaCroix, D. (2001). World champion of public speaking. [Video]. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUDCzbmLV-0 Standard YouTube License.

Mandela, N. (2011). Speech from the dock in the Rivonia trial.[Video]. YouTube https://www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/i-am-prepared-to-die Standard YouTube License.

Mandela, N. (1994). Presidential Inaugural Speech. [Video]. YouTube https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/nelsonmandelainauguralspeech.htm Standard YouTube License.

Miller, B.J. (2015). What really matters at the end of life. [Video]. YouTube https://www.ted.com/talks/bj_miller_what_really_matters_at_the_end_of_life?language=en Standard YouTube License.

Moth. (2021). Storytelling tips and tricks: How to tell a successful story. https://themoth.org/share-your-story/storytelling-tips-tricks

Obama, B. (2016). White House correspondents dinner. [Video]. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxFkEj7KPC0 Standard YouTube License.

Pink, D. (2009). The puzzle of motivation. [Video]. YouTube https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_the_puzzle_of_motivation Standard YouTube License.

Rothwell, D. (2014). Practically Speaking. Oxford University Press.Robinson, K. (2013). How to escape education’s death valley. [Video]. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX78iKhInsc Standard YouTube License.

Rosling, H. (2014). Don’t Panic-Hans Rosling showing the facts about population.[Video]. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FACK2knC08E Standard YouTube License.

Schwartz, B. (2005). The paradox of choice. [Video]. YouTube https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choice Standard YouTube License.

Toastmasters International. (2016). Concluding your Speech. https://www.toastmasters.org/Resources/Concluding-Your-Speech

Young, S. (2014). I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much. [Video]. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtPGrLoU5Uk Standard YouTube License.

Yousafzai, M. (2013). Malala Yousafzai addresses United Nations Youth Assembly. [Video]. YouTube https://youtu.be/3rNhZu3ttIU Standard YouTube License.

Zhang, Y. (2015). Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. [Video]. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmN4xOGkxGo Standard YouTube License.

Media Attributions

Audience clapping © Alex Motoc is licensed under a CC BY (Attribution) license
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11.2 Steps of a Conclusion

Learning objectives.

Examine the three steps of an effective conclusion: restatement of the thesis, review of the main points, and concluding device.
Differentiate among Miller’s (1946) ten concluding devices.

Matthew Culnane – Steps – CC BY-SA 2.0.

In Section 11.1 “Why Conclusions Matter” , we discussed the importance a conclusion has on a speech. In this section, we’re going to examine the three steps in building an effective conclusion.

Restatement of the Thesis

Restating a thesis statement is the first step in a powerful conclusion. As we explained in Chapter 9 “Introductions Matter: How to Begin a Speech Effectively” , a thesis statement is a short, declarative sentence that states the purpose, intent, or main idea of a speech. When we restate the thesis statement at the conclusion of our speech, we’re attempting to reemphasize what the overarching main idea of the speech has been. Suppose your thesis statement was, “I will analyze Barack Obama’s use of lyricism in his July 2008 speech, ‘A World That Stands as One.’” You could restate the thesis in this fashion at the conclusion of your speech: “In the past few minutes, I have analyzed Barack Obama’s use of lyricism in his July 2008 speech, ‘A World That Stands as One.’” Notice the shift in tense: the statement has gone from the future tense (this is what I will speak about) to the past tense (this is what I have spoken about). Restating the thesis in your conclusion reminds the audience of the major purpose or goal of your speech, helping them remember it better.

Review of Main Points

After restating the speech’s thesis, the second step in a powerful conclusion is to review the main points from your speech. One of the biggest differences between written and oral communication is the necessity of repetition in oral communication. When we preview our main points in the introduction, effectively discuss and make transitions to our main points during the body of the speech, and finally, review the main points in the conclusion, we increase the likelihood that the audience will retain our main points after the speech is over.

In the introduction of a speech, we deliver a preview of our main body points, and in the conclusion we deliver a review . Let’s look at a sample preview:

In order to understand the field of gender and communication, I will first differentiate between the terms biological sex and gender. I will then explain the history of gender research in communication. Lastly, I will examine a series of important findings related to gender and communication.

In this preview, we have three clear main points. Let’s see how we can review them at the conclusion of our speech:

Today, we have differentiated between the terms biological sex and gender, examined the history of gender research in communication, and analyzed a series of research findings on the topic.

In the past few minutes, I have explained the difference between the terms “biological sex” and “gender,” discussed the rise of gender research in the field of communication, and examined a series of groundbreaking studies in the field.

Notice that both of these conclusions review the main points originally set forth. Both variations are equally effective reviews of the main points, but you might like the linguistic turn of one over the other. Remember, while there is a lot of science to help us understand public speaking, there’s also a lot of art as well, so you are always encouraged to choose the wording that you think will be most effective for your audience.

Concluding Device

The final part of a powerful conclusion is the concluding device. A concluding device is essentially the final thought you want your audience members to have when you stop speaking. It also provides a definitive sense of closure to your speech. One of the authors of this text often makes an analogy between a gymnastics dismount and the concluding device in a speech. Just as a gymnast dismounting the parallel bars or balance beam wants to stick the landing and avoid taking two or three steps, a speaker wants to “stick” the ending of the presentation by ending with a concluding device instead of with, “Well, umm, I guess I’m done.” Miller observed that speakers tend to use one of ten concluding devices when ending a speech (Miller, 1946). The rest of this section is going to examine these ten concluding devices.

Conclude with a Challenge

The first way that Miller found that some speakers end their speeches is with a challenge. A challenge is a call to engage in some kind of activity that requires a contest or special effort. In a speech on the necessity of fund-raising, a speaker could conclude by challenging the audience to raise 10 percent more than their original projections. In a speech on eating more vegetables, you could challenge your audience to increase their current intake of vegetables by two portions daily. In both of these challenges, audience members are being asked to go out of their way to do something different that involves effort on their part.

Conclude with a Quotation

A second way you can conclude a speech is by reciting a quotation relevant to the speech topic. When using a quotation, you need to think about whether your goal is to end on a persuasive note or an informative note. Some quotations will have a clear call to action, while other quotations summarize or provoke thought. For example, let’s say you are delivering an informative speech about dissident writers in the former Soviet Union. You could end by citing this quotation from Alexander Solzhenitsyn: “A great writer is, so to speak, a second government in his country. And for that reason no regime has ever loved great writers” (Solzhenitsyn, 1964). Notice that this quotation underscores the idea of writers as dissidents, but it doesn’t ask listeners to put forth effort to engage in any specific thought process or behavior. If, on the other hand, you were delivering a persuasive speech urging your audience to participate in a very risky political demonstration, you might use this quotation from Martin Luther King Jr.: “If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live” (King, 1963). In this case, the quotation leaves the audience with the message that great risks are worth taking, that they make our lives worthwhile, and that the right thing to do is to go ahead and take that great risk.

Conclude with a Summary

When a speaker ends with a summary, he or she is simply elongating the review of the main points. While this may not be the most exciting concluding device, it can be useful for information that was highly technical or complex or for speeches lasting longer than thirty minutes. Typically, for short speeches (like those in your class), this summary device should be avoided.

Conclude by Visualizing the Future

The purpose of a conclusion that refers to the future is to help your audience imagine the future you believe can occur. If you are giving a speech on the development of video games for learning, you could conclude by depicting the classroom of the future where video games are perceived as true learning tools and how those tools could be utilized. More often, speakers use visualization of the future to depict how society would be, or how individual listeners’ lives would be different, if the speaker’s persuasive attempt worked. For example, if a speaker proposes that a solution to illiteracy is hiring more reading specialists in public schools, the speaker could ask her or his audience to imagine a world without illiteracy. In this use of visualization, the goal is to persuade people to adopt the speaker’s point of view. By showing that the speaker’s vision of the future is a positive one, the conclusion should help to persuade the audience to help create this future.

Conclude with an Appeal for Action

Probably the most common persuasive concluding device is the appeal for action or the call to action. In essence, the appeal for action occurs when a speaker asks her or his audience to engage in a specific behavior or change in thinking. When a speaker concludes by asking the audience “to do” or “to think” in a specific manner, the speaker wants to see an actual change. Whether the speaker appeals for people to eat more fruit, buy a car, vote for a candidate, oppose the death penalty, or sing more in the shower, the speaker is asking the audience to engage in action.

One specific type of appeal for action is the immediate call to action . Whereas some appeals ask for people to engage in behavior in the future, the immediate call to action asks people to engage in behavior right now. If a speaker wants to see a new traffic light placed at a dangerous intersection, he or she may conclude by asking all the audience members to sign a digital petition right then and there, using a computer the speaker has made available ( http://www.petitiononline.com ). Here are some more examples of immediate calls to action:

In a speech on eating more vegetables, pass out raw veggies and dip at the conclusion of the speech.
In a speech on petitioning a lawmaker for a new law, provide audience members with a prewritten e-mail they can send to the lawmaker.
In a speech on the importance of using hand sanitizer, hand out little bottles of hand sanitizer and show audience members how to correctly apply the sanitizer.
In a speech asking for donations for a charity, send a box around the room asking for donations.

These are just a handful of different examples we’ve actually seen students use in our classrooms to elicit an immediate change in behavior. These immediate calls to action may not lead to long-term change, but they can be very effective at increasing the likelihood that an audience will change behavior in the short term.

Conclude by Inspiration

By definition, the word inspire means to affect or arouse someone. Both affect and arouse have strong emotional connotations. The ultimate goal of an inspiration concluding device is similar to an “appeal for action” but the ultimate goal is more lofty or ambiguous; the goal is to stir someone’s emotions in a specific manner. Maybe a speaker is giving an informative speech on the prevalence of domestic violence in our society today. That speaker could end the speech by reading Paulette Kelly’s powerful poem “I Got Flowers Today.” “I Got Flowers Today” is a poem that evokes strong emotions because it’s about an abuse victim who received flowers from her abuser every time she was victimized. The poem ends by saying, “I got flowers today… / Today was a special day—it was the day of my funeral / Last night he killed me” (Kelly, 1994).

Conclude with Advice

The next concluding device is one that should be used primarily by speakers who are recognized as expert authorities on a given subject. Advice is essentially a speaker’s opinion about what should or should not be done. The problem with opinions is that everyone has one, and one person’s opinion is not necessarily any more correct than another’s. There needs to be a really good reason your opinion—and therefore your advice—should matter to your audience. If, for example, you are an expert in nuclear physics, you might conclude a speech on energy by giving advice about the benefits of nuclear energy.

Conclude by Proposing a Solution

Another way a speaker can conclude a speech powerfully is to offer a solution to the problem discussed within a speech. For example, perhaps a speaker has been discussing the problems associated with the disappearance of art education in the United States. The speaker could then propose a solution of creating more community-based art experiences for school children as a way to fill this gap. Although this can be an effective conclusion, a speaker must ask herself or himself whether the solution should be discussed in more depth as a stand-alone main point within the body of the speech so that audience concerns about the proposed solution may be addressed.

Conclude with a Question

Another way you can end a speech is to ask a rhetorical question that forces the audience to ponder an idea. Maybe you are giving a speech on the importance of the environment, so you end the speech by saying, “Think about your children’s future. What kind of world do you want them raised in? A world that is clean, vibrant, and beautiful—or one that is filled with smog, pollution, filth, and disease?” Notice that you aren’t actually asking the audience to verbally or nonverbally answer the question; the goal of this question is to force the audience into thinking about what kind of world they want for their children.

Conclude with a Reference to Audience

The last concluding device discussed by Miller (1946) was a reference to one’s audience. This concluding device is when a speaker attempts to answer the basic audience question, “What’s in it for me?” The goal of this concluding device is to spell out the direct benefits a behavior or thought change has for audience members. For example, a speaker talking about stress reduction techniques could conclude by clearly listing all the physical health benefits stress reduction offers (e.g., improved reflexes, improved immune system, improved hearing, reduction in blood pressure). In this case, the speaker is clearly spelling out why audience members should care—what’s in it for them!

Informative versus Persuasive Conclusions

As you read through the ten possible ways to conclude a speech, hopefully you noticed that some of the methods are more appropriate for persuasive speeches and others are more appropriate for informative speeches. To help you choose appropriate conclusions for informative, persuasive, or entertaining speeches, we’ve created a table ( Table 11.1 “Your Speech Purpose and Concluding Devices” ) to help you quickly identify appropriate concluding devices.

Table 11.1 Your Speech Purpose and Concluding Devices

Types of Concluding Devices	General Purposes of Speeches
Types of Concluding Devices
Challenge		x	x
Quotation	x	x	x
Summary	x	x	x
Visualizing the Future	x	x	x
Appeal		x	x
Inspirational	x	x	x
Advice		x	x
Proposal of Solution		x	x
Question	x	x	x
Reference to Audience		x	x

Key Takeaways

An effective conclusion contains three basic parts: a restatement of the speech’s thesis; a review of the main points discussed within the speech; and a concluding device that helps create a lasting image in audiences’ minds.
Miller (1946) found that speakers tend to use one of ten concluding devices. All of these devices are not appropriate for all speeches, so speakers need to determine which concluding device would have the strongest, most powerful effect for a given audience, purpose, and occasion.
Take the last speech you gave in class and rework the speech’s conclusion to reflect the three parts of a conclusion. Now do the same thing with the speech you are currently working on for class.
Think about the speech you are currently working on in class. Write out concluding statements using three of the devices discussed in this chapter. Which of the devices would be most useful for your speech? Why?

Kelly, P. (1994). I got flowers today. In C. J. Palmer & J. Palmer, Fire from within . Painted Post, NY: Creative Arts & Science Enterprises.

King, M. L. (1963, June 23). Speech in Detroit. Cited in Bartlett, J., & Kaplan, J. (Eds.), Bartlett’s familiar quotations (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co., p. 760.

Miller, E. (1946). Speech introductions and conclusions. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 32 , 181–183.

Solzhenitsyn, A. (1964). The first circle. New York: Harper & Row. Cited in Bartlett, J., & Kaplan, J. (Eds.), Bartlett’s familiar quotations (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co., p. 746.

Share This Book

Speech conclusions

The introduction and conclusion are essential to a speech. The audience will remember the main ideas even If the middle of the speech is a mess or nerves overtake the speaker. So if nothing else, get these parts down!

Conclusions

The speech is almost over and the audience needs closure. The conclusion needs to be a clincher (definitive end to the speech) – “That’s it” is not a conclusion.

Signal the ending

Just as the audience has been led through the speech, there must also be a signal to the end of the speech.

Tone of voice
My purpose was to make sure everyone knows how to make a better PB&J.

Logical conclusion

The main points and topic are brought together in a logical conclusion.

Emphasize the thesis statement
Soggy bread
Sticky hands
Starving children

Psychological conclusion

Psychologically the audience should walk away emotionally touched.

Make a reference back to the introduction and the attention getter.
Now that you know the secret to making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, go home and try this technique .
If you want change, vote for Snoopy! Or Go out and collect 100 more signatures!
Remember to savor each bite as the jelly remains safely in the sandwich and not on your hands.

As you decide which of these conclusion styles will work best with your speech, keep in mind your conclusion needs to restate your claim.

Especially important if there is a question and answer period

The Art of Public Speaking

“There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.” –Dale Carnegie

Writing a Conclusion

Concluding with power, almost to the finish line.

When reading a great novel, many people just can’t wait to get to the end of the book. Some people will actually jump ahead hundreds of pages and read the last chapter just to see what happens. Humans have an innate desire to “get to the end.” Imagine reading a novel and finding that the author just stopped writing five or six chapters from the end—how satisfied would you be with that author? In the same way, when a speaker doesn’t think through her or his conclusion properly, audience members are often left just as dissatisfied. In other words, conclusions are really important!

11.1 Why Conclusions Matter

Learning objectives.

Understand the basic benefits of a strong conclusion.
Explain the serial position effect and its importance on public speaking.

As public speaking professors and authors, we have seen many students give otherwise good speeches that seem to fall apart at the end. We’ve seen students end their three main points by saying things such as “OK, I’m done”; “Thank God that’s over!”; or “Thanks. Now what? Do I just sit down?” It’s understandable to feel relief at the end of a speech, but remember that as a speaker, your conclusion is the last chance you have to drive home your ideas. When a speaker opts to end the speech with an ineffective conclusion—or no conclusion at all—the speech loses the energy that’s been created, and the audience is left confused and disappointed. Instead of falling prey to emotional exhaustion, remind yourself to keep your energy up as you approach the end of your speech, and plan ahead so that your conclusion will be an effective one.

Of course, a good conclusion will not rescue a poorly prepared speech. Thinking again of the chapters in a novel, if one bypasses all the content in the middle, the ending often isn’t very meaningful or helpful. So to take advantage of the advice in this chapter, you need to keep in mind the importance of developing a speech with an effective introduction and an effective body; if you have these elements, you will have the foundation you need to be able to conclude effectively. Just as a good introduction helps bring an audience member into the world of your speech, and a good speech body holds the audience in that world, a good conclusion helps bring that audience member back to the reality outside of your speech.

In this section, we’re going to examine the functions fulfilled by the conclusion of a speech. A strong conclusion serves to signal the end of the speech and to help your listeners remember your speech.

Signals the End

The first thing a good conclusion can do is to signal the end of a speech. You may be thinking that showing an audience that you’re about to stop speaking is a “no brainer,” but many speakers really don’t prepare their audience for the end. When a speaker just suddenly stops speaking, the audience is left confused and disappointed. Instead, we want to make sure that audiences are left knowledgeable and satisfied with our speeches. In Section 11.2 “Steps of a Conclusion” , we’ll explain in great detail about how to ensure that you signal the end of your speech in a manner that is both effective and powerful.

Aids Audience’s Memory of Your Speech

The second reason for a good conclusion stems out of some very interesting research reported by the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus back in 1885 in his book Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology .Ebbinghaus, H. (1885). Memory: A contribution to experimental psychology [Online version]. Retrieved from http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Ebbinghaus/index.htm Ebbinghaus proposed that humans remember information in a linear fashion, which he called the serial position effect . He found an individual’s ability to remember information in a list (e.g., a grocery list, a chores list, or a to-do list) depends on the location of an item on the list. Specifically, he found that items toward the top of the list and items toward the bottom of the list tended to have the highest recall rates. The serial position effect basically finds that information at the beginning of a list ( primacy ) and information at the end of the list ( recency ) are easier to recall than information in the middle of the list.

So what does this have to do with conclusions? A lot! Ray Ehrensberger wanted to test Ebbinghaus’ serial position effect in public speaking. Ehrensberger created an experiment that rearranged the ordering of a speech to determine the recall of information.Ehrensberger, R. (1945). An experimental study of the relative effectiveness of certain forms of emphasis in public speaking. Speech Monographs, 12 , 94–111. doi: 10.1080/03637754509390108 Ehrensberger’s study reaffirmed the importance of primacy and recency when listening to speeches. In fact, Ehrensberger found that the information delivered during the conclusion (recency) had the highest level of recall overall.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

A strong conclusion is very important because it’s a speaker’s final chance to really explain the importance of her or his message and allows the speaker to both signal the end of the speech and help the audience to remember the main ideas. As such, speakers need to thoroughly examine how they will conclude their speeches with power.
The serial position effect is the idea that people remember ideas that are stated either first (primacy) or last (recency) in a list the most. It is important to speech conclusions because restating your main ideas helps you to take advantage of the recency effect and helps your audience remember your ideas.
Think about a recent speech you heard either in class or elsewhere. Did the speaker have a strong conclusion? List the elements of the conclusion that were particularly effective and ineffective. Identify two ways you could have made the speaker’s conclusion stronger.
After listening to a speech or class lecture, close your eyes and say aloud the main points you remember from the presentation. Does your memory follow what you would expect according to the serial position effect?

11.2 Steps of a Conclusion

Examine the three steps of an effective conclusion: restatement of the thesis, review of the main points, and concluding device.
Differentiate among Miller’s (1946) ten concluding devices.

In Section 11.1 “Why Conclusions Matter” , we discussed the importance a conclusion has on a speech. In this section, we’re going to examine the three steps in building an effective conclusion.

Restatement of the Thesis

Review of Main Points

In the introduction of a speech, we deliver a preview of our main body points, and in the conclusion we deliver a review . Let’s look at a sample preview:

In order to understand the field of gender and communication, I will first differentiate between the terms biological sex and gender. I will then explain the history of gender research in communication. Lastly, I will examine a series of important findings related to gender and communication.

In this preview, we have three clear main points. Let’s see how we can review them at the conclusion of our speech:

Today, we have differentiated between the terms biological sex and gender, examined the history of gender research in communication, and analyzed a series of research findings on the topic.

In the past few minutes, I have explained the difference between the terms “biological sex” and “gender,” discussed the rise of gender research in the field of communication, and examined a series of groundbreaking studies in the field.

Concluding Device

The final part of a powerful conclusion is the concluding device. A concluding device is essentially the final thought you want your audience members to have when you stop speaking. It also provides a definitive sense of closure to your speech. One of the authors of this text often makes an analogy between a gymnastics dismount and the concluding device in a speech. Just as a gymnast dismounting the parallel bars or balance beam wants to stick the landing and avoid taking two or three steps, a speaker wants to “stick” the ending of the presentation by ending with a concluding device instead of with, “Well, umm, I guess I’m done.” Miller observed that speakers tend to use one of ten concluding devices when ending a speech.Miller, E. (1946). Speech introductions and conclusions. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 32 , 181–183. The rest of this section is going to examine these ten concluding devices.

Conclude with a Challenge

Conclude with a Quotation

A second way you can conclude a speech is by reciting a quotation relevant to the speech topic. When using a quotation, you need to think about whether your goal is to end on a persuasive note or an informative note. Some quotations will have a clear call to action, while other quotations summarize or provoke thought. For example, let’s say you are delivering an informative speech about dissident writers in the former Soviet Union. You could end by citing this quotation from Alexander Solzhenitsyn: “A great writer is, so to speak, a second government in his country. And for that reason no regime has ever loved great writers.”Solzhenitsyn, A. (1964). The first circle. New York: Harper & Row. Cited in Bartlett, J., & Kaplan, J. (Eds.), Bartlett’s familiar quotations (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co., p. 746. Notice that this quotation underscores the idea of writers as dissidents, but it doesn’t ask listeners to put forth effort to engage in any specific thought process or behavior. If, on the other hand, you were delivering a persuasive speech urging your audience to participate in a very risky political demonstration, you might use this quotation from Martin Luther King Jr.: “If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.”King, M. L. (1963, June 23). Speech in Detroit. Cited in Bartlett, J., & Kaplan, J. (Eds.), Bartlett’s familiar quotations (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co., p. 760. In this case, the quotation leaves the audience with the message that great risks are worth taking, that they make our lives worthwhile, and that the right thing to do is to go ahead and take that great risk.

Conclude with a Summary

Conclude by Visualizing the Future

Conclude with an Appeal for Action

In a speech on eating more vegetables, pass out raw veggies and dip at the conclusion of the speech.
In a speech on petitioning a lawmaker for a new law, provide audience members with a prewritten e-mail they can send to the lawmaker.
In a speech on the importance of using hand sanitizer, hand out little bottles of hand sanitizer and show audience members how to correctly apply the sanitizer.
In a speech asking for donations for a charity, send a box around the room asking for donations.

Conclude by Inspiration

Conclude with Advice

Conclude by Proposing a Solution

Conclude with a Question

Conclude with a Reference to Audience

Informative versus Persuasive Conclusions

Table 11.1 Your Speech Purpose and Concluding Devices

Types of Concluding Devices	General Purposes of Speeches

Challenge		x	x
Quotation	x	x	x
Summary	x	x	x
Visualizing the Future	x	x	x
Appeal		x	x
Inspirational	x	x	x
Advice		x	x
Proposal of Solution		x	x
Question	x	x	x
Reference to Audience		x	x

An effective conclusion contains three basic parts: a restatement of the speech’s thesis; a review of the main points discussed within the speech; and a concluding device that helps create a lasting image in audiences’ minds.
Miller (1946) found that speakers tend to use one of ten concluding devices. All of these devices are not appropriate for all speeches, so speakers need to determine which concluding device would have the strongest, most powerful effect for a given audience, purpose, and occasion.
Take the last speech you gave in class and rework the speech’s conclusion to reflect the three parts of a conclusion. Now do the same thing with the speech you are currently working on for class.
Think about the speech you are currently working on in class. Write out concluding statements using three of the devices discussed in this chapter. Which of the devices would be most useful for your speech? Why?

11.3 Analyzing a Conclusion

See what a full conclusion section looks like.
Distinguish among the three parts of a conclusion.

So far this chapter has focused on how to go about creating a clear conclusion. We discussed why conclusions are important, the three steps of effective conclusions, and ten different ways to conclude a speech. In this section, we’re going to examine an actual conclusion to a speech. Please read the sample conclusion paragraph for the smart dust speech.

Sample Conclusion: Smart Dust

Today, we’ve explored how smart dust may impact all of our lives in the near future by examining what smart dust is, how smart dust could be utilized by the US military, and how smart dust could impact all of our lives sooner rather than later. While smart dust is quickly transforming from science fiction to science fact, experts agree that the full potential of smart dust will probably not occur until 2025. While smart dust is definitely coming, swarms of smart dust eating people as was depicted in Michael Crichton’s 2002 novel, Prey , aren’t reality. However, as with any technological advance, there are definite ethical considerations and worries to consider. Even Dr. Kris Pister’s Smart Dust Project website admits that as smart dust becomes more readily available, one of the trade-offs will be privacy. Pister responds to these critiques by saying, “As an engineer, or a scientist, or a hair stylist, everyone needs to evaluate what they do in terms of its positive and negative effect. If I thought that the negatives of working on this project were larger than or even comparable to the positives, I wouldn’t be working on it. As it turns out, I think that the potential benefits of this technology far outweigh the risks to personal privacy.”

Now that you’ve had a chance to read the conclusion to the speech on smart dust, read it a second time and try to find the three parts of an introduction as discussed earlier in this chapter. Once you’re finished analyzing this conclusion, take a look at Table 11.2 “Smart Dust Conclusion” , which shows you how the speech was broken down into the various parts of a conclusion.

Table 11.2 Smart Dust Conclusion


Today we’ve explored how smart dust may impact all of our lives in the near future by
The first part of the conclusion is a restatement of the thesis statement.
examining what smart dust is, how smart dust could be utilized by the US military, and how smart dust could impact all of our lives in the near future.
Following the thesis statement, the speech briefly reiterates the three main points discussed in the speech.
While smart dust is quickly transferring from science fiction to science fact, experts agree that the full potential of smart dust will probably not occur until 2025. While smart dust is definitely in our near future, swarms of smart dust eating people as was depicted in Michael Crichton’s 2002 novel, , isn’t reality. However, as with any technological advance, there are definite ethical considerations and worries to consider. Even Dr. Kris Pister’s Smart Dust Project website admits that as smart dust becomes more readily available, one of the trade-offs will be privacy. Pister responds to these critiques by saying, “As an engineer, or a scientist, or a hair stylist, everyone needs to evaluate what they do in terms of its positive and negative effect. If I thought that the negatives of working on this project were larger than or even comparable to the positives, I wouldn’t be working on it. As it turns out, I think that the potential benefits of this technology far outweigh the risks to personal privacy.”
In this concluding device, we see not only a referral to the attention getter (Michael Crichton’s book ), we also see a visualizing of some future oriented factors people need to consider related to smart dust, which is then followed by a direct quotation.
Notice that in an informative speech this type of conclusion is appropriate because we are trying to inform people about smart dust, but would you want to end a persuasive speech in this fashion? Definitely not!
However, you could create an entire persuasive speech advocating for smart dust (its many applications are more important than the loss of privacy) or against smart dust (privacy is more important than its many applications).

Now that you have seen the above analysis of a speech conclusion, we encourage you to do a similar analysis of the conclusions of other speeches. Listen to a speech in your class or online. Does it end with a restatement of the thesis, a review of the main points, and a concluding device? Can you suggest ways to improve the conclusion?

Here is another exercise to try. Consider the specific purpose and three main points of a hypothetical speech. Based on those components, develop a conclusion for that speech.

11.4 Chapter Exercises

Speaking ethically.

Tika’s speech on death camps in Africa was a real flop, and she knew it. The speech was quickly prepared, inadequately researched, and not very logical. Thankfully, Tika knew she had an ace in her back pocket. She planned on ending her speech with a video showing mass graves that she knew would make people sick.

She thought, Who cares if your speech sucks as long as you get them in the end!

Would you say that Tika’s approach to public speaking is ethical? Why or why not?
Which type of concluding device is Tika planning to use? Is this device appropriate to her speech? Why or why not? If you conclude it is not appropriate, which devices would be better approaches? Why?
Is it ever ethical to rely heavily on an emotional conclusion to persuade one’s audience? Why?

END-OF-CHAPTER ASSESSMENT

serial position effect
central limit theorem
law of position effect
law of limits theorem
serial limits theorem
closing stages
predominance
speech finish
recency device
predominance device
finishing device
concluding device
finalizing device
a call to public service
a call to civic duty
a proclamational appeal
an appeal to one’s general sense of right and wrong
an immediate call to action
A good or a bad audience is still receptive.
It’s all about me.
Don’t forget to love your audience.
What’s in it for me?
A suffering audience is a persuaded audience.

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Knowledge Base
How to conclude an essay | Interactive example

How to Conclude an Essay | Interactive Example

Published on January 24, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on July 23, 2023.

The conclusion is the final paragraph of your essay . A strong conclusion aims to:

Tie together the essay’s main points
Show why your argument matters
Leave the reader with a strong impression

Your conclusion should give a sense of closure and completion to your argument, but also show what new questions or possibilities it has opened up.

This conclusion is taken from our annotated essay example , which discusses the history of the Braille system. Hover over each part to see why it’s effective.

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

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Step 1: return to your thesis, step 2: review your main points, step 3: show why it matters, what shouldn’t go in the conclusion, more examples of essay conclusions, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about writing an essay conclusion.

To begin your conclusion, signal that the essay is coming to an end by returning to your overall argument.

Don’t just repeat your thesis statement —instead, try to rephrase your argument in a way that shows how it has been developed since the introduction.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

Next, remind the reader of the main points that you used to support your argument.

Avoid simply summarizing each paragraph or repeating each point in order; try to bring your points together in a way that makes the connections between them clear. The conclusion is your final chance to show how all the paragraphs of your essay add up to a coherent whole.

To wrap up your conclusion, zoom out to a broader view of the topic and consider the implications of your argument. For example:

Does it contribute a new understanding of your topic?
Does it raise new questions for future study?
Does it lead to practical suggestions or predictions?
Can it be applied to different contexts?
Can it be connected to a broader debate or theme?

Whatever your essay is about, the conclusion should aim to emphasize the significance of your argument, whether that’s within your academic subject or in the wider world.

Try to end with a strong, decisive sentence, leaving the reader with a lingering sense of interest in your topic.

The easiest way to improve your conclusion is to eliminate these common mistakes.

Don’t include new evidence

Any evidence or analysis that is essential to supporting your thesis statement should appear in the main body of the essay.

The conclusion might include minor pieces of new information—for example, a sentence or two discussing broader implications, or a quotation that nicely summarizes your central point. But it shouldn’t introduce any major new sources or ideas that need further explanation to understand.

Don’t use “concluding phrases”

Avoid using obvious stock phrases to tell the reader what you’re doing:

“In conclusion…”
“To sum up…”

These phrases aren’t forbidden, but they can make your writing sound weak. By returning to your main argument, it will quickly become clear that you are concluding the essay—you shouldn’t have to spell it out.

Don’t undermine your argument

Avoid using apologetic phrases that sound uncertain or confused:

“This is just one approach among many.”
“There are good arguments on both sides of this issue.”
“There is no clear answer to this problem.”

Even if your essay has explored different points of view, your own position should be clear. There may be many possible approaches to the topic, but you want to leave the reader convinced that yours is the best one!

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Argumentative
Literary analysis

This conclusion is taken from an argumentative essay about the internet’s impact on education. It acknowledges the opposing arguments while taking a clear, decisive position.

The internet has had a major positive impact on the world of education; occasional pitfalls aside, its value is evident in numerous applications. The future of teaching lies in the possibilities the internet opens up for communication, research, and interactivity. As the popularity of distance learning shows, students value the flexibility and accessibility offered by digital education, and educators should fully embrace these advantages. The internet’s dangers, real and imaginary, have been documented exhaustively by skeptics, but the internet is here to stay; it is time to focus seriously on its potential for good.

This conclusion is taken from a short expository essay that explains the invention of the printing press and its effects on European society. It focuses on giving a clear, concise overview of what was covered in the essay.

The invention of the printing press was important not only in terms of its immediate cultural and economic effects, but also in terms of its major impact on politics and religion across Europe. In the century following the invention of the printing press, the relatively stationary intellectual atmosphere of the Middle Ages gave way to the social upheavals of the Reformation and the Renaissance. A single technological innovation had contributed to the total reshaping of the continent.

This conclusion is taken from a literary analysis essay about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein . It summarizes what the essay’s analysis achieved and emphasizes its originality.

By tracing the depiction of Frankenstein through the novel’s three volumes, I have demonstrated how the narrative structure shifts our perception of the character. While the Frankenstein of the first volume is depicted as having innocent intentions, the second and third volumes—first in the creature’s accusatory voice, and then in his own voice—increasingly undermine him, causing him to appear alternately ridiculous and vindictive. Far from the one-dimensional villain he is often taken to be, the character of Frankenstein is compelling because of the dynamic narrative frame in which he is placed. In this frame, Frankenstein’s narrative self-presentation responds to the images of him we see from others’ perspectives. This conclusion sheds new light on the novel, foregrounding Shelley’s unique layering of narrative perspectives and its importance for the depiction of character.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

Ad hominem fallacy
Post hoc fallacy
Appeal to authority fallacy
False cause fallacy
Sunk cost fallacy

College essays

Choosing Essay Topic
Write a College Essay
Write a Diversity Essay
College Essay Format & Structure
Comparing and Contrasting in an Essay

(AI) Tools

Grammar Checker
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AI Detector
Plagiarism Checker
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Your essay’s conclusion should contain:

A rephrased version of your overall thesis
A brief review of the key points you made in the main body
An indication of why your argument matters

The conclusion may also reflect on the broader implications of your argument, showing how your ideas could applied to other contexts or debates.

For a stronger conclusion paragraph, avoid including:

Important evidence or analysis that wasn’t mentioned in the main body
Generic concluding phrases (e.g. “In conclusion…”)
Weak statements that undermine your argument (e.g. “There are good points on both sides of this issue.”)

Your conclusion should leave the reader with a strong, decisive impression of your work.

The conclusion paragraph of an essay is usually shorter than the introduction . As a rule, it shouldn’t take up more than 10–15% of the text.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, July 23). How to Conclude an Essay | Interactive Example. Scribbr. Retrieved August 22, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/conclusion/

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68 Structuring the Conclusion and Examples

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, the student will be able to:

Recognize the functions of introductions and conclusions.
Identify the primary elements of a speech introduction.
Identify the primary elements of a speech conclusion.
Construct introductions and conclusions.

Structuring the Conclusion

Similar to the introduction, the conclusion has three specific elements that you will want to incorporate in order to make it as strong as possible. Given the nature of these elements and what they do, these should generally be incorporated into your conclusion in the order they are presented below.

Element 1: Signal the End

The first thing a good conclusion should do is to signal the end of a speech. You may be thinking that telling an audience that you’re about to stop speaking is a “no brainer,” but many speakers really don’t prepare their audience for the end. When a speaker just suddenly stops speaking, the audience is left confused and disappointed. Instead, you want to make sure that audiences are left knowledgeable and satisfied with your speech. In a way, it gives them time to begin mentally organizing and cataloging all the points you have made for further consideration later.

Generally, the easiest way to signal that it is the end of your speech is to begin your conclusion with the words, “In conclusion.” Similarly, “In summary” or “To conclude” work just as well. While these may seem very blunt ways of communicating the end of your speech to the audience, you want it to be extremely clear to everyone that you are wrapping things up. Certainly you can choose to employ more elegant, interesting, or creative language here, but you then run the risk of the audience not catching on to the fact that your speech is ending.

On the other hand, saying “In conclusion” (and definitely saying it more than once) can have an unintended negative effect. The audience may figure you are finished and turn you off, sort of like how we get up and leave during the credits in a movie. Therefore, you can also go straight to the summary, which is Element 2.

Element 2: Restate Main Points

In the introduction of a speech you delivered a preview of your main points; now in the conclusion you will deliver a review. One of the biggest differences between written and oral communication is the necessity of repetition in oral communication (the issue of “planned redundancy” again). When you preview your main points in the introduction, effectively discuss and make transitions to your main points during the body of the speech, and finally, review the main points in the conclusion, you increase the likelihood that the audience will understand and retain your main points after the speech is over. Remember, your English instructor can re-read your essays as many times as he or she wants, but your audience – and your instructor – only have one opportunity to catch and remember the points you are trying to get across in your speech.

Because you are trying to remind the audience of your main points, you want to be sure not to bring up any new material or ideas. For example, if you said, “There are several other issues related to this topic, such as…but I don’t have time for them,” that would make the audience confused and perhaps wonder why you did not address those in the body section. Or if you were giving a persuasive speech on wind energy and you ended with, “Wind energy is the energy of the future, but there are still a few problems with it, such as noise and killing lots of birds,” you are bringing up a counter-argument that should have been dealt with in the body of the speech.

This is a good place to remind you that the introduction, preview, transitions, and conclusion are for helping the audience be interested and prepared to listen, to retain, and to follow your speech. The conclusion is too late for that. The hard core facts and content are in the body. If you are tempted to cram lots of material into the conclusion, that is not the place for it, nor is it the place to provide the important steps to a solution.

As you progress as a public speaker, you will want to work on rephrasing your summary statement so that it does not sound like an exact repeat of the preview. For example, if your preview was:

The three arguments in favor of medical marijuana that I will present are that it would make necessary treatments available to all, it would cut down on the costs to law enforcement, and it would bring revenue to state budgets.

Your summary might be:

In the minutes we’ve had together, I have shown you that approving medical marijuana in our state will greatly help persons with a variety of chronic and severe conditions. Also, funds spent on law enforcement to find and convict legitimate marijuana users would go down as revenues from medical marijuana to the state budget would go up.

Element 3: Clincher

The third element of your conclusion is the clincher , or something memorable with which to conclude your speech. The clincher is sometimes referred to as a Concluding Device. These are the very last words you will say in your speech, so you need to make them count. This is the last thing your audience will hear, so you want to make it good. In a certain way, you might think of your speech as a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant: the introduction is the appetizer that gets everyone ready for the main course, the body section is the “meat and vegetables,” and the conclusion is like dessert. But have you ever had a nice meal that ended with a dessert that didn’t really taste good? Regardless of how good the rest of the meal was, you probably walked away thinking, It was okay, but I just remember not liking it at the end . A good clincher prevents your audience from thinking that way, and in fact can even make an audience remember a speech more favorably.

something memorable with which to conclude your speech

In many ways the clincher is like the inverse of the attention-getter. You want to start the speech off with something strong, and you want to end the speech with something strong. To that end, similar to what we discussed above with attention getters, there are a number of ways you can make your clincher strong and memorable.

Conclude with a Challenge

One way you can end your speech is with a challenge. A challenge is a call to engage in some kind of activity that requires a special effort. In a speech on the necessity of fund-raising, a speaker could conclude by challenging the audience to raise 10 percent more than their original projections. In a speech on eating more vegetables, you could challenge your audience to increase their current intake of vegetables by two portions daily. In both of these challenges, audience members are being asked to go out of their way to do something different that involves effort on their part.

In a challenge, try to make it aspirational but reasonable. The challenge should be something they can strive for but not see as something impossible. Two or three more servings a day of fruits and vegetables is reasonable, but six probably would be seen as too much.

In the same category as a challenge, probably the most common persuasive concluding device is the appeal for action or the call to action. In essence, the appeal for action occurs when a speaker asks her or his audience to engage in a specific behavior. When a speaker concludes by asking the audience “to do” something, the speaker wants to see an actual change. Whether the speaker appeals for people to eat more fruit, buy a car, vote for a candidate, oppose the death penalty, get more sleep, or sing more in the shower, the speaker is asking the audience to engage in action.

One specific type of appeal for action is the immediate call to action. Whereas some appeals ask for people to engage in behavior in the future, the immediate call to action asks people to engage in behavior right now. If a speaker wants to see a new traffic light placed at a dangerous intersection, he or she may conclude by asking all the audience members to sign a digital petition right then and there, using a computer the speaker has made available. For a speech on eating more vegetables, pass out raw veggies and dip at the conclusion of the speech; someone giving a speech on petitioning a lawmaker for a new law could provide audience members with a prewritten e-mail they can send to the lawmaker.

If you are giving a persuasive speech about a solution to a problem, you should not relegate the call to action to the very end of the speech. It should probably be a main point where you can deal with the steps and specifics of the solution in more detail. For example, perhaps a speaker has been discussing the problems associated with the disappearance of art education in the United States. The speaker could then propose a solution of creating more community-based art experiences for school children as a way to fill this gap. Although this can be an effective conclusion, a speaker must ask herself or himself whether the solution should be discussed in more depth as a stand-alone main point within the body of the speech so that audience concerns about the proposed solution may be addressed.

Conclude with a Quotation

Another way you can conclude a speech is by providing a quotation relevant to the speech topic. When using a quotation, you need to think about whether your goal is to end on a persuasive note or an informative note. Some quotations will have a clear call to action, while other quotations summarize or provoke thought. For example, let’s say you are delivering an informative speech about dissident writers in the former Soviet Union. You could end by citing this quotation from Alexander Solzhenitsyn: “A great writer is, so to speak, a second government in his country. And for that reason no regime has ever loved great writers.”

Notice that this quotation underscores the idea of writers as dissidents, but it doesn’t ask listeners to put forth effort to engage in any specific thought process or behavior. If, on the other hand, you were delivering a persuasive speech urging your audience to sponsor a child in a developing country for $40 per month, you might use this quotation by Forest Witcraft:

“A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove. But the world may be different, because I was important in the life of a child.”

In this case, the quotation leaves the audience with the message that monetary sacrifices are worth taking, that they make our lives worthwhile, and that the right thing to do is to go ahead and make that sacrifice.

Conclude by Visualizing the Future

The purpose of a conclusion that refers to the future is to help your audience imagine the future you believe can occur. If you are giving a speech on the development of video games for learning, you could conclude by depicting the classroom of the future where video games are perceived as true learning tools. More often, speakers use visualization of the future to depict how society or how individual listeners’ lives would be different, if the speaker’s persuasive attempt worked. For example, if a speaker proposes that a solution to illiteracy is hiring more reading specialists in public schools, the speaker could ask her or his audience to imagine a world without illiteracy. In this use of visualization, the goal is to persuade the audience to adopt the speaker’s point of view. By showing that the speaker’s vision of the future is a positive one, the conclusion should help to persuade the audience to help create this future.

Conclude by Inspiration

By definition, the word inspire means to affect or arouse someone. Both affect and arouse have strong emotional connotations. The ultimate goal of an inspirational concluding device is similar to an “appeal for action” but the ultimate goal is more lofty or ambiguous; the goal is to stir someone’s emotions in a specific manner. This is done by sharing a story, poem, or quotation that appeals to the audience basic values and therefore appeals to emotions. Stories or allusions to “underdogs” who overcame obstacles to achieve something worthwhile or those who make sacrifices for the good of others can help inspire. You probably know of such stories (Olympic athletes and a well-known figure such as Captain Sullenberg are examples) that would be of value, as long as they are relevant to your topic and purpose. Poetry is sometimes used to inspire, but you want to use a short passage (eight lines or less) of poetry that is clear to the audience.

to affect or arouse someone’s emotions in a specific, positive manner

Conclude with a Question

Refer Back to the Introduction

This method provides a good sense of closure to the speech and can be one of the most effective methods. If you started the speech with a startling statistic or fact, such as “Last year, according to the official website of the American Humane Society, four million pets were euthanized in shelters in the United States,” in the end you could say, “Remember that shocking number of four million euthanized pets? With your donation of time or money to the Northwest Georgia Rescue Shelter, you can help lower that number in our region.”

Conclude with an Anecdote or Personal Story

As with your attention getter, a brief story can be a strong way to conclude. However, it must be relevant and not go on too long. Combining this method and the previous one, you might finish telling a story that you started in the introduction as your clincher. This method is probably better with persuasive speeches where you want to end with a strong emotional appeal.

Conclude with a Reference to Audience or Audience Self-Interest

The last concluding device involves a direct reference to your audience. This concluding device is used when a speaker attempts to answer the basic audience question, “What’s in it for me?” (the WIIFM question). The goal of this concluding device is to spell out the direct benefits a behavior or thought change has for audience members. For example, a speaker talking about stress reduction techniques could conclude by clearly listing all the physical health benefits stress reduction offers (e.g., improved reflexes, improved immune system, improved hearing, reduction in blood pressure). In this case, the speaker is clearly spelling out why audience members should care about the topic and what’s in it for them.

Informative versus Persuasive Conclusions

As you read through the above possible ways to conclude a speech, hopefully you noticed that some of the methods are more appropriate for persuasive speeches and others are more appropriate for informative speeches. An appeal to action, for example, may not be appropriate for an informative speech since asking your audience to do something often borders on persuasion, which isn’t what an informative speech is intended to do. Similarly, if your persuasive speech is on the importance of voting in the next local election, an appeal to action clincher would probably be one of your stronger options.

8.5 – Examples of Conclusions

Here are two examples of conclusions. More examples can be found on the outlines at the ends of Chapters 12, 13, and 15.

Informative Speech Conclusion

Topic: Anxiety

Anxiety is a complex emotion that afflicts people of all ages and social backgrounds and is experienced uniquely by each individual. We have seen that there are multiple symptoms, causes, and remedies, all of which can often be related either directly or indirectly to cognitive behaviors. While most people do not enjoy anxiety, it seems to be part of the universal human experience, so realize that you are not alone, but also realize that you are not powerless against it. With that said, the following quote, attributed to an anonymous source, could not be more true, “Worry does not relieve tomorrow of its stress; it merely empties today of its strength.”

Persuasive Speech Conclusion

Topic: Adopting a Rescue Animal

I believe you should adopt a rescue animal because it helps stop forms of animal cruelty, you can add a healthy companion to your home, and it is a relatively simple process that can save a life. Each and every one of you should go to your nearest animal shelter, which may include the Catoosa Citizens for Animal Care, the Humane Society of NWGA in Dalton, the Murray County Humane Society, or the multiple other shelters in the area to bring a new animal companion into your life. I’ll leave you with a paraphrased quote from Deborah Jacobs’s article “Westminster Dog Show Junkie” on Forbes.com: “You may start out thinking that you are rescuing the animal, and ultimately find that the animal rescues you right back.”

Something to Think About

Read out loud one of the example introductions earlier in the chapter, and time your reading. If an introduction should not be longer than about 10%-15% of the total speech time, how long would the speech attached to this introduction be? (You’ll have to do the math!) If you had to give a shorter speech using this introduction, how would you edit it to make it for the time limit but still be an effective introduction?

Final Note: If you are wondering about the photo at the beginning of this chapter, it is of the headstone of poet Emily Dickinson in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her parting words, as shown on the marker, were “Called Back.” That was her “life” conclusion. One of the authors is a huge Emily Dickinson fan, took the photo on a trip to New England, and loves to include quotations from her poetry.

Exploring Communication in the Real World Copyright © 2020 by Chris Miller is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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How to end a speech effectively

How to end a speech memorably

3 ways to close a speech effectively.

By: Susan Dugdale

Knowing how, and when, to end a speech is just as important as knowing how to begin. Truly.

What's on this page:

why closing well is important
3 effective speech conclusions with examples and audio
7 common ways people end their speeches badly - what happens when you fail to plan to end a speech memorably
How to end a Maid Honor speech: 20 examples
links to research showing the benefits of finishing a speech strongly

Image: Stop talking. It's the end. Finish. Time's up.

Why ending a speech well is important

Research * tells us people most commonly remember the first and last thing they hear when listening to a speech, seminar or lecture.

Therefore if you want the audience's attention and, your speech to create a lasting impression sliding out with: "Well, that's all I've got say. My time's up anyway. Yeah - so thanks for listening, I guess.", isn't going to do it.

So what will?

* See the foot of the page for links to studies and articles on what and how people remember : primacy and recency.

Three effective speech conclusions

Here are three of the best ways to end a speech. Each ensures your speech finishes strongly rather than limping sadly off to sure oblivion.

You'll need a summary of your most important key points followed by the ending of your choice:

a powerful quotation
a challenge
a call back

To work out which of these to use, ask yourself what you want audience members to do or feel as a result of listening to your speech. For instance;

Do you want to motivate them to work harder?
Do you want them to join the cause you are promoting?
Do you want them to remember a person and their unique qualities?

What you choose to do with your last words should support the overall purpose of your speech.

Let's look at three different scenarios showing each of these ways to end a speech.

To really get a feel for how they work try each of them out loud yourself and listen to the recordings.

1. How to end a speech with a powerful quotation

Image: Martin Luther King Jr. Text:The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Your speech purpose is to inspire people to join your cause. Specifically you want their signatures on a petition lobbying for change and you have everything ready to enable them to sign as soon as you have stopped talking.

You've summarized the main points and want a closing statement at the end of your speech to propel the audience into action.

Borrowing words from a revered and respected leader aligns your cause with those they fought for, powerfully blending the past with the present.

For example:

"Martin Luther King, Jr said 'The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.'

Now is the time to decide. Now is the time to act.

Here's the petition. Here's the pen. And here's the space for your signature.

Now, where do you stand?"

Try it out loud and listen to the audio

Try saying this out loud for yourself. Listen for the cumulative impact of: an inspirational quote, plus the rhythm and repetition (two lots of 'Now is the time to...', three of 'Here's the...', three repeats of the word 'now') along with a rhetorical question to finish.

Click the link to hear a recording of it: sample speech ending with a powerful quotation .

2. How to end a speech with a challenge

Image: New Zealand Railway poster - 'Great Place this Hermitage', Mt Cook c.1931. ((10468981965) Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Your speech purpose is to motivate your sales force.

You've covered the main points in the body of it, including introducing an incentive: a holiday as a reward for the best sales figures over the next three weeks.

You've summarized the important points and have reached the end of your speech. The final words are a challenge, made even stronger by the use of those two extremely effective techniques: repetition and rhetorical questions.

"You have three weeks from the time you leave this hall to make that dream family holiday in New Zealand yours.

Can you do it?

Will you do it?

The kids will love it.

Your wife, or your husband, or your partner, will love it.

Do it now!"

Click the link to listen to a recording of it: sample speech ending with a challenge . And do give it a go yourself.

3. How to end a speech with a call back

Image: Spring time oak tree leaves against a blue sky. Text: Every blue sky summer's day I'll see Amy in my mind. How end a speech with a call back.

Your speech purpose is to honor the memory of a dear friend who has passed away.

You've briefly revisited the main points of your speech and wish in your closing words to leave the members of the audience with a happy and comforting take-home message or image to dwell on.

Earlier in the speech you told a poignant short story. It's that you return to, or call back.

Here's an example of what you could say:

"Remember that idyllic picnic I told you about?

Every blue sky summer's day I'll see Amy in my mind.

Her red picnic rug will be spread on green grass under the shade of an old oak tree. There'll be food, friends and laughter.

I'll see her smile, her pleasure at sharing the simple good things of life, and I know what she'd say too. I can hear her.

"Come on, try a piece of pie. My passing is not the end of the world you know."

Click the link to hear a recording of it: sample speech ending with a call back . Try it out for yourself too. (For some reason, this one is a wee bit crackly. Apologies for that!)

When you don't plan how to end a speech...

That old cliché 'failing to plan is planning to fail' can bite and its teeth are sharp.

The 'Wing It' Department * delivers lessons learned the hard way. I know from personal experience and remember the pain!

How many of these traps have caught you?

having no conclusion and whimpering out on a shrug of the shoulders followed by a weak, 'Yeah, well, that's all, I guess.', type of line.
not practicing while timing yourself and running out of it long before getting to your prepared conclusion. (If you're in Toastmasters where speeches are timed you'll know when your allotted time is up, that means, finish. Stop talking now, and sit down. A few seconds over time can be the difference between winning and losing a speech competition.)
ending with an apology undermining your credibility. For example: 'Sorry for going on so long. I know it can be a bit boring listening to someone like me.'
adding new material just as you finish which confuses your audience. The introduction of information belongs in the body of your speech.
making the ending too long in comparison to the rest of your speech.
using a different style or tone that doesn't fit with what went before it which puzzles listeners.
ending abruptly without preparing the audience for the conclusion. Without a transition, signal or indication you're coming to the end of your talk they're left waiting for more.

* Re The 'Wing It' Department

One of the most galling parts of ending a speech weakly is knowing it's avoidable. Ninety nine percent of the time it didn't have to happen that way. But that's the consequence of 'winging it', trying to do something without putting the necessary thought and effort in.

It's such a sod when there's no one to blame for the poor conclusion of your speech but yourself! ☺

How to end a Maid of Honor speech: 20 examples

More endings! These are for Maid of Honor speeches. There's twenty examples of varying types: funny, ones using Biblical and other quotations... Go to: how to end a Maid of Honor speech

Label: old fashioned roses in background. Text: 20 Maid of Honor speech endings.

How to write a speech introduction

Now that you know how to end a speech effectively, find out how to open one well. Discover the right hook to use to captivate your audience.

Find out more: How to write a speech introduction: 12 of the very best ways to open a speech .

Retro Label: 12 ways to hook an audience

More speech writing help

Image: creativity in progress sign. Text: How to write a speech

You do not need to flail around not knowing what to do, or where to start.

Visit this page to find out about structuring and writing a speech .

You'll find information on writing the body, opening and conclusion as well as those all important transitions. There's also links to pages to help you with preparing a speech outline, cue cards, rehearsal, and more.

Research on what, and how, people remember: primacy and recency

McLeod, S. A. (2008). Serial position effect . (Primacy and recency, first and last) Simply Psychology.

Hopper, Elizabeth. "What Is the Recency Effect in Psychology?" ThoughtCo, Feb. 29, 2020.

ScienceDirect: Recency Effect - an overview of articles from academic Journals & Books covering the topic.

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Public Speaking Tips & Speech Topics

Writing the Conclusion of a Speech

Jim Peterson has over 20 years experience on speech writing. He wrote over 300 free speech topic ideas and how-to guides for any kind of public speaking and speech writing assignments at My Speech Class.

One of the best ways to conclude a speech is to tie the conclusion into the introduction. For example, you might begin your speech by telling a suspenseful story that relates to your topic, but save the end of the story for the very end of your speech. Or refer back to the same quotation. Or refer to the joke that you told. Any of these strategies will give your speech a sense of connection and closure, and will leave the audience with a great final impression.

If you are delivering a persuasive speech, you might try a slightly different ending because your goal is not just to be remembered, it’s to inspire people to take action. One way to do this is to issue a call-to-action. This means that you specifically tell your audience what actions you expect them to take related to your speech. Another way to inspire action with the conclusion of your speech is to appeal to their emotions. If you create a desired emotion within your audience, and then leave them with that emotion, they will take that emotion with them. For example: If you leave them feeling guilty about not-recycling by painting a bleak picture about the state of the Earth that their grandchildren will live in, then they might recall that emotion the next time they choose not to recycle and alter their behavior.

Leaving a strong final impression is the most important aspect of the conclusion, but their are some other necessary steps as well:

Making a smooth transition from the body of the speech to the conclusion is crucial. To do this, use a signpost known as a concluding statement. The most common concluding statements include: “in conclusion”, “I leave you with”, “finally today”, and other similarly obvious endings.
Just as it is important to preview a speech in the introduction, it is important to summarize the speech in the conclusion. The more the audience hears your main points, the more likely they are to remember them. By previewing, discussing, and summarizing your main points your audience will be exposed to them at least three times during your speech.

A good conclusion should be about 5-10% of the total speech length. Anything shorter that 5% means that the ending has come too abruptly. Anything more that 10%, and the audience may become restless. This brings up another point: If it sounds like a conclusion, you need to finish your speech in a reasonable amount of time. The conclusion is not the place to add new material.

Effective ways to end a speech

Summarize the main speech topics or main points.
Repeat a few keywords or phrases by using the rhetorical figure of speech repetition.
State how your points prove your general and specific goal.
Restate and reinforce the central idea.
Repeat the tie between the needs and interests of the listeners, and your thesis.
Refer back to an anecdote or quotation in the introduction text.
Offer a so-called moral of the story.
Call them to act and offer them how-to-do-it steps.
List the benefits or available applications; very effective ways to end a speech.
Restate the problem and provide your solution in two sentences.
Visualize the outcome of your call to action with a prop or visual aid.
Transform your central idea or even the discourse title into an easy to remember slogan.
Recite a couple of lines from songs, poems or citations and quotes from a historical presentation.
End with a heart-felt human interest story in which all comes together.
Finish with a clinching personal anecdote.
Close with an illustrative design example.
End with a joke or funny remark. Must say that only choose these ways to end a speech if it’s really funny.
Connect your speech topics with the common grounds and thoughts of the public speaking audience. This way to end a speech brings the overall speech topic in their hearts and minds.
Ask a rhetorical question and answer with an easy to remember oneliner.
Give the ultimate answer on an important question you proposed earlier in your introduction.
Surprise with a shocking fact or figure that empahizes the need for change.
Draw the contours of the ideal situation you propose. Visualize that they will see paradise if they do, think or act as you want.

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10.2 Conclusions

You have riveted your audience with an engaging introduction. Your introduction led to a compellingly written and logically organized speech. Now, it is time to wrap up the entire experience, but how? Do not make the mistake of thinking, “Well, my speech is just about over at this point, so it doesn’t matter how I end it.” You need a conclusion just as dynamic and memorable as your speech opener. How do you feel when a movie has a disappointing ending that does not wrap up the story or, worse, simply leaves you hanging? You feel frustrated, quite possibly like you wasted your money and time. Your audience will feel the same way if your closing remarks do not provide effective closure for your speech. Too many speakers do not realize that when a speech fizzles out, the audience is left with a negative impression. Your speech introduction and body may have included the most profound words known to man, but it could be said that a speaker is only as strong as her/his last sentence. You want your final sentences to be ones that are remembered and valued. The conclusion is the last opportunity to share anything with the audience; you don’t want to waste those valuable seconds.

What a Speech Conclusion Is Meant to Do

The speech conclusion has four basic missions:

Wraps things up: This portion is often referred to as a “ Brakelight .” Much like brake lights on a car warn us the car will be stopping, this “brake light” or transitional statement warns the audience that the speech is ending.
Summarizes: A solid conclusion briefly restates the preview statement in past tense to remind the audience of the main points that were covered in the presentation.
Tells the audience where to go from here: Depending on the purpose of your presentation, this component may play different roles. If your goal was to inform the audience, this is where you might tell them of a rich source they can go to for more information if their curiosity was piqued. If your goal is to persuade, this spot serves as a great opportunity to challenge the audience to take action based on the goals of your speech. Tell them what you want them to do now that they heard your speech.
Closes the speech: The note of finality, clincher, closing statement, or whatever you want to call it is an important element that leaves the audience reflecting on the topic.

Wrapping Things Up: It Says, “We Are Nearing the End!”

Hopefully, your audience will want you to speak for an hour, rather than just five or eight minutes. However, when you transition into your conclusion and use appropriate signposting, your audience realizes that the speech will come full circle. Usually, the first transitional phrase is a “brake light” of sorts. It lets the audience know that you are starting to wrap up your presentation. You may use a transitional statement to illustrate this such as “In conclusion…” “In summary…” or “To wrap things up….”

The Summary: It Tells the Audience, “Here’s What I Told You.”

Just as you used a mapping statement to preview your main points, now you will summarize your points within your conclusion. Simply rewording—or even restating—your original thesis statement or preview statement in the past tense will effectively summarize your speech. While this will feel very repetitive to you as a speaker, it is useful in helping the audience understand and retain the information you covered. While you may be tempted to revisit all the details of your speech, this element is best served by a clear, concise, declarative sentence that restates the main points you addressed.

Your conclusion for the fire extinguisher speech might begin with wrapping up and a summary for the audience.

“In conclusion, I have explained how to safely use a fire extinguisher. We have to talk about the PASS system of pulling the pin, aiming the nozzle, squeezing the trigger, and sweeping the fire.”

Where to Go From Here: It Says, “Here’s What To Do Now!”

The conclusion is the last chance you have to speak to the audience about this topic. Depending on your general purpose, this portion of the speech will vary. Informative speaking often creates an interest in the audience to learn more about your topic. It’s best to give the audience a good resource to check out if they want to learn more information. Avoid telling the audience to “google it.” We all know how to do that. Since you’ve done the research, tell us the best one you found. An example is, “If you’d like to learn more about the history of Stillwater, I recommend visiting The Sheerar Museum at 702 South Duncan here in Stillwater.”

Persuasive presentation conclusions want to utilize the last opportunity to challenge the listeners to action. A conclusion in a persuasive speech is where the call to action or advocacy is provided and is what makes your speech truly persuasive. This portion gives you a specific opportunity to tell them what you hope they do as a result of hearing your speech. You may say something like “As you leave here today, I challenge you to pick up five pieces of trash as you walk back to your dorm or car.”

Note of Finality: It Lets the Audience Know, “The Speech Is Over.”

Your speech conclusion is a mental takeaway for the audience, and you will want a strong note of finality . Your conclusion should contain enough memorable words and phrases that will help the audience positively recall the experience—and even recollect certain points that you made. Do not forget to include that “ta-da” moment. The last statement of your presentation should be thoroughly planned to let the audience know you are done. You want your final statement to leave a strong lasting impact. It should leave the audience reflecting on your topic and your information. Some speech writers like to reference the attention-getter as a nice way to bring the speech full circle by revisiting a story, question, or video clip they used originally to grab the audience’s attention. After your closing statement and applause from the audience, you are, of course, welcome to thank them for their attention and/or attendance.

To complete our fire extinguisher speech, we might end strong by saying, “While a fire can be a scary event, having the knowledge to put it out can make all the difference for loss of property or even lives.”

Putting It All Together

lined up books being held up by stick figures

Your introduction and conclusion should be thought of as bookends to the speech, holding up the body and all the important information the speech is sharing. Bookends are similar but not exactly the same. When creating your introduction and conclusion, you are setting the tone for the speech; how do you want the audience to feel about this topic? Choose an introduction that creates that feel. If the speech is scary, use a quote or startling statistic; if the speech is fun, use humor or a recent event. When you conclude, you want to bring the speech full circle, back to where the speech started. If you used humor in the introduction, you want to leave the audience with a laugh, if the speech was scary, you want to help them find more information. Everything in a speech is planned, and the introduction and conclusion help to make the speech memorable and interesting to the audience.

transitional phrase that lets the audience know the speech is coming to a close

clear sentence that restates the preview statement in past tense, outlining the main points that were addressed in the speech

last statement that wraps up your entire presentation and lets the audience know the speech is finished

It’s About Them: Public Speaking in the 21st Century Copyright © 2022 by LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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19 Functions of Conclusions

Learning Objectives

Your conclusion is the last statement you will share with the audience, let’s make it memorable.

Create and deliver a conclusion that recaps main points, restates your thesis, and leaves the audience with something to consider.

Functions of Conclusions

So: You are at the end of your speech, and you can’t wait to sit down and be done! You start speeding up your rate of delivery, but your volume goes down a bit because you are rushing and running out of breath. You finish the last main point of your speech and race off to your seat: That is not the best way to conclude a speech.

Just as with introductions, conclusions have specific functions to fulfill within a speech. And just as with introductions, there are a number of types of conclusions. In this section of this chapter, we will look at these functions, discuss the relationship between introductions and conclusions, and offer some strategies for preparing and delivering an effective conclusion.

The basic structure of a speech is not linear but circular. Speeches should not take you on a straight line from A to Z. Speeches should take you in a circle from A to Z. Speeches start at the top of the circle with the introduction, work their way all around the circle, and end up back at the top with the conclusion. All the parts fit together and flow together in this circle, and the conclusion takes you right back to the introduction—with an enhanced understanding of the topic.

Prepare the Audience for the End of the Speech

A speech does not just stop—or, to be more precise, a speech should not just stop. A speech, effectively structured and delivered, should move smoothly from point to point and then to the conclusion. One of the most important functions of the conclusion is to prepare the audience for the end of the speech.

Throughout the speech, you have been providing the audience with verbal and nonverbal cues to where you are going in the speech. As you move to the conclusion, you need to continue to provide these cues. You can use language cues (“now that we have seen that we can solve this problem effectively, we can review the entire situation”), movement cues (physically moving back to the center of the room where you began the speech), and paralinguistic cues (slow the rate of the speech, use more pauses) to help prepare your audience for the end of the speech.

When you prepare the audience for the end of the speech, you let them know that they need to be ready for any final comments or appeals from you, and that they should be prepared to acknowledge you as a speaker.

Present any Final Appeals

Depending on the type of speech you are presenting, you may be asking the audience for something. You may be asking them to act in a certain way or to change their attitude toward a certain person or topic. You may be asking them to simply understand what you have had to say in your presentation. Regardless, one of the tasks of the conclusion is to leave the audience motivated positively toward you and the topic you have been presenting.

Psychologists and sociologists (as well as communication scholars) know that there is both a primacy and recency effect in presenting the information. [1] Essentially, people tend to better remember information presented first or last—they remember what they hear at the beginning of the speech or at the end. In presenting your appeals to the audience, you can take advantage of the recency effect to increase the likelihood of your audience acting on your appeals.

“LBJ at the University of Michigan” by Cecil W. Stoughton. Public domain.

Former President Lyndon Johnson, in a speech announcing a major policy initiative known as the Great Society, concluded his speech with a series of challenges and appeals to his audience.

For better or for worse, your generation has been appointed by history to deal with those problems and to lead America toward a new age. You have the chance never before afforded to any people in any age. You can help build a society where the demands of morality, and the needs of the spirit, can be realized in the life of the Nation.

So, will you join in the battle to give every citizen the full equality which God enjoins and the law requires, whatever his belief, or race, or the color of his skin?

Will you join in the battle to give every citizen an escape from the crushing weight of poverty?

Will you join in the battle to make it possible for all nations to live in enduring peace — as neighbors and not as mortal enemies?

Will you join in the battle to build the Great Society, to prove that our material progress is only the foundation on which we will build a richer life of mind and spirit?

There are those timid souls that say this battle cannot be won; that we are condemned to a soulless wealth. I do not agree. We have the power to shape the civilization that we want. But we need your will and your labor and your hearts, if we are to build that kind of society. [2]

“President Johnson poverty tour” by Cecil W. Stoughton. Public domain.

The appeals were significant in that the speech was delivered as a commencement address at the University of Michigan, at a time in American society when college and university students were protesting many government actions.

When Demosthenes was asked what were the three most important aspects of oratory, he answered, Action, Action, Action. – Plutarch

Summarize and Close

A conclusion is structural in function. Just as the introduction must include a thesis statement, as well as a preview of the main ideas of the speech, the conclusion must include a restatement of the thesis and a review of the main ideas of the speech. The review and restatement are mirror images of the preview statement in the introduction. Structurally, the restatement and review bring the speech back to the top of the circle and remind the audience where we started. Functionally, they help cue the audience that the end of the speech is coming up.

Let’s go back to the thesis and preview example. The example was from a speech on ethanol, and the sample thesis was “So right now let’s see how dependence on fossil fuels costs you money and how the use of ethanol as a supplement will save you money and save the world from energy obsolescence.”

In the conclusion of this speech, one effective method to summarize and wrap-up is to simply restate the thesis and preview—but in the past tense, since we have now heard the speech.

Today we have seen how dependence on fossil fuels costs you money and how the use of ethanol as a supplement will save you money and save the world from energy obsolescence. We learned first why we as a society are so dependent upon fossil fuels in the first place, and then secondly we found out what causes this dependence, and third, we saw how ethanol as a fuel supplement will help end this dependence, and finally, we discovered how simple it is to implement this solution and make the world a better place for all of us.

By restating the thesis and reviewing the main ideas, you once again take advantage of both the primacy and recency effect, and you create a complete and coherent structure to your speech.

“BP Oil Flood Protest in New Orleans” by Derek Bridges. CC-BY .

End with an Informative Clincher

With conclusions, however, there are some additional forms you may wish to use, and there are some variations and adaptations of the introductions that you will want to use as you prepare your conclusions.

Earlier in this section when we discussed introductions, it was argued that stories are quite possibly the most effective form of introduction: Stories appear to be almost “hard-wired” into our individual and cultural make-up, and stories have a built-in structure. Stories, then, also make excellent conclusions, and can be used as conclusions in at least two ways. First, you can complete the story that you started in the introduction. Remember: You stopped right before the climax or denouement, and now, you can finish the story. Alternatively, you can retell the story, and this time the story will reflect what the audience has learned from your speech. Either method provides coherence and closure to the story and the speech.

Humor also remains an effective type of conclusion, but the same dangers with the use of humor discussed in the section on introductions applies to the conclusion. Still, effective use of humor leaves the audience in a receptive frame of mind, and, so long as the humor is relevant to the speech, provides a positive reminder to the audience of the main purpose of the speech.

There are several other ways to end a speech; here are some alternative ideas to help finalize your speech and leave the audience with something to consider. There is no right way to end a speech; however, there are ways in which to connect better with your audience and the context of your speaking event. You can brainstorm a few and narrow them down to the best one!

Ideas for informative clinchers:

Refer back to the introduction
Answer a question asked earlier
Use an anecdote
Ask a rhetorical question
Use a visualization

For Future Reference | How to organize this in an outline |

Summarize main points and restate thesis:
Provide Closure:
Informative Clincher:

Key Takeaways

Conclusions are just as important as any other part of the speech.

Be sure to end on a strong note. You will need a strong clincher!
Avoid rushing in the end; you will want to recap the main points, restate your thesis, provide closer and leave the audience with something to thing about.
Don’t forget to end confidently, too! Non-verbals matter throughout your whole speech.

Garlick, R. (1993). Verbal descriptions, communicative encounters and impressions. Communication Quarterly , 41 , 394 – 404. ↵

Johnson, L. (1964, May 22). The great society. Speech posted at http://www.americanrhetoric.com/sp eeches/lbjthegreatsociety.htm ↵

Public Speaking Copyright © by Dr. Layne Goodman; Amber Green, M.A.; and Various is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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How to Conclude a Speech

Last Updated: May 15, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Gale McCreary . Gale McCreary is the Founder and Chief Coordinator of SpeechStory, a nonprofit organization focused on improving communication skills in youth. She was previously a Silicon Valley CEO and President of a Toastmasters International chapter. She has been recognized as Santa Barbara Entrepreneurial Woman of the Year and received Congressional recognition for providing a Family-Friendly work environment. She has a BS in Biology from Stanford University. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 116,603 times.

The last moments are where a good speech can be made. If you want to leave your audience stunned, you can learn the basics needs of a good conclusion, as well as some tactics for ending creatively. You can also learn what techniques to avoid.

Things You Should Know

Summarize the main points of your speech to remind listeners what they've learned.
Recall something from the introduction so your speech comes full circle.
Thank your audience for attending and listening.

Concluding Your Speech

Step 1 Summarize the main points you made throughout the speech.

Use the chance to repeat your thesis a final time, if necessary. What's the one thing you hope someone remembers from your speech? What's the one thing that needs to be learned?
In informal speeches, repeating the main points won't be necessary. If you're giving a toast at a wedding, you don't need to run back through a list of the great things about the groom.

If you started the speech by drawing a sad portrait of a recently returned veteran who couldn't get work, or health insurance, and ended up in dire straits, that can be a heart-breaking intro. Pick back up with the story in conclusion to let you know where that vet is now.
Any kind of reference can work. If you started a speech with a quote by Thomas Paine, end with more about Thomas Paine. The bookend technique is an excellent way of signaling the end for the audience.

Put a face on things. Case studies and personal examples are extremely effective in helping an audience connect with a complicated issue or topic.
Some people like to use this technique for the introduction, but it can be unexpected and even more effective to wait and use it at the conclusion, especially for speeches that are a little bit shorter.

Step 4 Use a signal phrase from your title.

"We can turn back the oceans and stop the warming of our planet. It's not too late, as the title of my speech promises. It's not too late for any of us."

Step 5 Don't be afraid of using the phrase "in conclusion."

It's also appropriate to use a "thank you" as the very last thing that you say: "We must continue fighting the good fight on climate change, for our children, for our economy, and for ourselves. Thank you." Cue applause.
Sometimes, it's also appropriate to ask for questions if the occasion calls for it. People should be sure your speech is over, but if people seem hesitant, it's ok to say, "I'd be happy to take questions, if anyone has them."

Nailing the Ending

Step 1 Slow down the speed of your speech at the end.

"The fight for climate change (pause ) is a fight (pause) that we must (pause) win. Our children (pause). Our children's children (pause). Demand it."

Return to the story of the veteran struggling to find work. With the sorts of infrastructure you're calling for in your speech, maybe he could be working a specific job, and getting into his own house, and even starting to plant a garden in the yard, something he always wanted to do. Dream a little, and let your audience do the same.

"We must do this for our children, we must do this for our neighbors, we must do this for America, we must do this for the world, we must do this for the oceans, we must do this for the forests..."
"Politicians can't legislate this. Architects can't build this. Artists can't dream this. Developers can't innovate this. Only you can do this."

Address the audience specifically. Start using "you" toward the end of the speech, or address an individual in the audience to help bring it home.

Avoiding Common Mistakes

"Well, that's pretty much it."
"That's it."
"I'm done."

When the speech is over, don't keep talking. Even if you just remembered a point you forgot to make a few minutes ago, don't launch back into the speech when people are clapping, or once they're finished. When the speech is over, let it be over. If there's a chance for Q & A, then get to it then.

Step 3 Don't apologize, even self-deprecatingly.

Some speeches can be leavened with a bit of humor in the ending. If you've just given a particularly touching toast at a wedding, it might be good to release a bit of the tension with a well-placed gag. Probably not so much for a professional presentation.

Community Q&A

Don't overwrite it. After your first few drafts, sit back and let it rest a few days. Then come back to your ending with new perspective. Pretend that you are listening to someone else say it for the first time. Read it like you will at the event. Then go back to editing. Thanks Helpful 4 Not Helpful 0
Catch your audience's attention. Use a shocking fact, or statistic that will leave the listeners thinking and will urge them to action. Thanks Helpful 2 Not Helpful 0

↑ https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/centers/oralcommunication/guides/introductions-and-conclusions
↑ https://westsidetoastmasters.com/article_reference/12_ways_to_end_your_speech.html
↑ https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-conclude-a-presentation
↑ https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-communications/chapter/conclusion/
↑ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/best-call-action-speech-examples-mitch-carson?trk=public_profile_article_view
↑ https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/centers/oralcommunication/guides/avoid-these-common-speech-mistakes-1

About This Article

To conclude a speech, try summarizing the main points you made throughout it so you can remind the listener what you want them to learn or take away. In some cases, you can use the conclusion to recall the introduction, showing how the speech comes full circle. Or, if you have a catchy title, work it into the conclusion to grab your audience's attention. You can also signal the ending by thanking the audience for listening or simply stating “In conclusion” to let your listeners know it’s time to wrap up. To put extra emphasis on your ending, slow your speech to get people to perk up and really hear your final points. To learn how to use your conclusion as a call to action, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Conclusion in Compositions

An Introduction to Punctuation
Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
B.A., English, State University of New York

In composition , the term conclusion refers to the sentences or paragraphs that bring a speech , essay , report, or book to a satisfying and logical end. Also called the concluding paragraph or closing .

The length of a conclusion is generally proportional to the length of the whole text. While a single paragraph is usually all that's required to conclude a standard essay or composition, a long research paper may call for several concluding paragraphs.

From the Latin, "to end"

Methods and Observations

They summarize the discussion.
They are concise.
They carry conviction.
They are memorable."

Strategies for Concluding an Essay

Restate the thesis of your essay, and perhaps your main points.
Mention the broader implications or significance of your topic.
Give a final example that pulls all the parts of your discussion together.
Offer a prediction.
End with the most important point as the culmination of your essay's development.
Suggest how the reader can apply the information you have just imparted.
End with a bit of drama or a flourish. Tell an anecdote , offer an appropriate quotation, ask a question, make a final insightful remark.

Three Guidelines

Before closing your essay, always look back at your introduction and then make sure that you say something fresh and/or express yourself in a different way. . . .
Short conclusions are usually preferable to long ones. . . .
If possible, conclude your argument in a way that makes explicit insights that have been implicit along the way.

Circular Closing

Thomas S. Kane This strategy works on the analogy of a circle, which ends where it began. The final paragraph repeats an important word or phrase prominent in the beginning, something the reader will remember. If the strategy is to work, the reader has to recognize the key term (but of course you cannot hang a sign on it--'Remember this'). You must stress it more subtly, perhaps by position or by using an unusual, memorable word.

Two Sorts of Endings

Bill Stott Someone has said that there are only two sorts of endings, the fanfare ( da-da! ) and the dying fall ( plub-plub-plew ). It's true. You can try to avoid these alternatives by cutting your writing off abruptly--ending it without an ending so to speak. But this sort of ending is also a kind of dying fall. Dying fall endings are more subtle and various than fanfares because all fanfares sound alike. But don't be squeamish about using a fanfare when one seems warranted. This ending is a dying fall.

Composing a Conclusion Under Pressure

Geraldine Woods Even though the conclusion is the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae, you may not have a lot of time to formulate one if you're writing under exam conditions. In fact, on the actual AP exam, you may not get to the conclusion at all. Don't worry; you can still do well if your essay stops abruptly. If you do have a moment, however, you can impress the exam grader with a short but powerful conclusion.

Last Things First

Katherine Anne Porter If I didn't know the ending of a story, I wouldn't begin. I always write my last lines, my last paragraph, my last page first, and then I go back and work towards it. I know where I'm going. I know what my goal is. And how I get there is God's grace.
paralogism (rhetoric and logic)
Definition and Examples of Conclusions in Arguments
Definition and Examples of Formal Essays
Definition and Examples of Syllogisms
What Is Deductive Reasoning?
What Is a Hasty Generalization?
Definition and Examples of Dialectic in Rhetoric
Non Sequitur (Fallacy)
Definition and Examples of Composition-Rhetoric
Definition and Examples of Sorites in Rhetoric
Premise Definition and Examples in Arguments
Definition and Examples of Valid Arguments
Definition and Examples of Evidence in Argument
Specificity in Writing
IRAC Method of Legal Writing

Module 7: Refining your Speech

Writing and revising the conclusion, learning objectives.

Outline strategies to write and revise a strong conclusion.

The next step is now to ensure that your conclusion is as strong as it can be by carefully writing and revising it.

Question #1: How long is my conclusion? Begin by ensuring that your conclusion is no longer than 5–10% of your total speech. That means that in a five-minute speech, your conclusion will last between 15 and 30 seconds. In a ten-minute speech, your conclusion will last between 30 and 60 seconds.

Question #2: Have I included any new ideas in my conclusion? This is NOT the place for new ideas. If you have an important idea that was not discussed in your speech, decide which main point it supports and put it there.

Question #3: How easy is it to recall my review? Review in the same order that each main point was presented and use the same names introduced in your introduction.

Question #4: Is the thesis of the speech clearly articulated? Since time has passed since the audience first heard it, it is helpful to use the exact same language you used for your thesis in the introduction.

Question #5: Have I linked back to my attention-getting device? A good speaker will leverage the power of the primary recency phenomenon by referencing the attention getting device in the conclusion. For example, the speaker could reference the protagonist from an anecdote, revisit the hypothetical scenario or current event, ask the rhetorical question again, and suggest how to view it in light of what the audience has learned from the speech. These links can reinforce a sense of familiarity in your audience for both the speaker and the speech.

Question #6: How effective is my lasting thought? While a lower order concluding device may be sufficient, using a higher order device like a call to action or visualizing the future will relate more to your audience, and thus have a stronger impact.

Question #7: How well can I deliver my conclusion? Since your conclusion is the shortest part of your speech, yet a very important one, it may be helpful to memorize it. You will want to ensure that you are maintaining eye contact and speaking emphatically, which means that you will want to avoid reading or glancing at your notecards.

Muzoon Almellehan. Provided by : DFID - UK Department for International Development. Located at : https://flic.kr/p/JQx1dL . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
Writing and Revising the Conclusion. Authored by : Anne Fleischer with Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution

Speaking Made Easy

Developing Confident Women

Planning a Speech Conclusion

How do you plan the conclusion of your speech?

An effective speech opens by gaining the listener’s attention, develops each point, and then has a memorable end. If you don’t know how to end a speech, your key points may get lost.

Effective conclusions

A strong opening and closing will create a memorable speech. The speech’s conclusion is the last words the audience will hear, and it helps highlight the key message they should remember after the presentation. Many great historical speeches have ended with powerful, stirring words that live on in memory.

For informative, persuasive and motivational speeches, the purpose of a conclusion is to drive home the big picture, review key points, and leave the audience with an enduring impact.

A light entertaining speech may have a different ending and not require a summary of the main points. In this case the speech needs a conclusion leaving a lasting impression of the speech.

A conclusion:

Signals the end of the speech
Reinforces the residual message
Provides a sense of closure
All loose ends should be tied up
Leaves the audience with a clear message
The audience should be left with a feeling of completeness

Planning your speech conclusion

Select the type of conclusion

Some people prepare the conclusion first, although this is a personal choice. Often there is a lot of moving back and forth through the speech during the development stage.

Choose the type of conclusion for your speech based on the purpose of the speech, content and audience. Ask yourself, ‘What is the purpose of this speech?’

Nine conclusion options are presented below.

There is a simple formula for speeches:

Tell them what you are going to tell them.
Then, tell them what you told them.

Your approach to your conclusion is focussed on point three. As you approach the end of your talk, consider saying something like,

In summary . . .
Therefore, I conclude
In conclusion . . .
Let me briefly restate these main points . . .

Then list your key points, one by one, showing how each one of them links to the other points. This is a linear repetition of what they have previously heard and emphasises that you are coming to the end of your speech.

Finally, link your last one or two sentences to your first sentences in the introduction to create a memorable ending.

Call to action

A call to action follows a persuasive presentation.

If you expect the audience to take action after they have listened to you, the best way to conclude is with strength and power. Increase your energy and tempo. Show your passion.

Present your call to action

In a positive way.
Use strong action words
Speak with strength and emphasis.
Create a sense of urgency
Provoke emotion or enthusiasm
Drive home the main point
Clearly and concisely state the action required

Examples of a call to action

I ask you to sign this petition.
Please attend this meeting.
I urge you to donate blood.
Buy now and get 50% off
Find your dream home with us
Donate now to save lives
Commit to a cleaner ocean, use fewer plastics

Your audience may, or may not, agree with you or are willing to do what you ask. However, they should be perfectly clear to them what you are requesting.

Quotation, story or anecdote

As you reach the end of your speech, you can say,

Let me leave you a quotation / story / anecdote that illustrates what I have been talking about . . .

Quotation examples:

‘There is no plan B because there is no planet B’ – Unknown
‘Be bold, dig deep, back yourself’ – Gail Kelly

Make this ending brief with a moral. Succinctly tell the audience what is the moral. Don’t leave it to them to work out the connection.

Often you can close with a story that illustrates your key points and clearly links to the key message that you are making within your speech.

Rhetorical question

A Rhetorical question can be effectively persuasive, subtly influencing the type of response the speaker wants to obtain from the audience. It can assist them to agree with you.

The rhetorical question is a question that is asked for effect and doesn’t require an answer. The answer may be provided by the questioner or be obvious. The question may not have an answer.

Examples: Knowing this, how many of you will light up a cigarette tomorrow?

What’s in a name?

Can birds fly?

To emphasise a point or idea: Are you kidding me?

Is the Pope Catholic?

Rhetorical questions with no answers: Who cares?

What’s the meaning of life?

The rule of three

The use of the rule of three makes the content more memorable for the audience.

Historical examples are:

‘I came, I saw, I conquered.’ Julius Caesar
‘Blood, sweat and tears’ General Patton
‘It is not the end; it is not even the beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning.’ Winston Churchill

Other examples:

Mind, body, spirit
Location, location, location
Stop, look and listen
3.6. Use of innuendo

An innuendo is an allusive or oblique remark or hint, typically a suggestive or disparaging one. It indirectly references to something else.

Innuendo can be used in different forms: In everyday life, in nature, or innocent, accidental and sexual innuendo.

Suggesting sexual connotation

‘Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry

Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.’

(Venus and Adonis, William Shakespeare)

Feigning jealousy to subtly criticise

‘I wish I could just let my kids play games on the iPad all day like you do.’

Suggesting there’s something more to a seemingly innocent situation.

‘Alison’s been spending a lot of time studying with Alex lately, if you know what I mean.’

Each sentence seems to say one thing while insinuating something different.

A memorable statement

A memorable statement may be one which has an ambiguous meaning, a play on words, create a laugh, or seemly be opposing in content. It is an attention-getting statement and often links to the opening sentence or a repeat of the opening statement.

Examples: I have worms.

It is never too late to . . .

Why is it called the rush hour when nothing moves?

1.8 Inspiration

A motivational speech can be uplifting and encourage the audience to think or do something new or different. Create your own inspirational message or perhaps use a quotation as an appropriate conclusion.

Examples:

‘You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.

(Malala Yousafzai)

‘Light tomorrow with today’ (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
Visual image

A presentation can be concluded with a visual image which ties in your take-home message. Leave this slide on when you finish your presentation to give the audience something to look at and think about for the next few minutes. This can increase the memory of the message.

Plan your closing remarks word for word

To ensure that your conclusion is as powerful as it can be, plan it word for word.

Knowing the purpose of your speech, it is easier to design an appropriate conclusion.

The body of your talk is where you present your ideas and influence the way the audience is to think. The conclusion must leave a lasting memory. Careful preparation to craft the correct and impactful words is worthwhile.

Make the ending known

Your final words and tone of voice need to indicate clearly to the audience that you have finished your speech. The audience should know that you have concluded.

Winding down dilutes your credibility and influence.

Don’t allow your speech to slowly wind down by saying,

That’s all I have to say, or

Well, that just about covers it. Thank you

There is nothing more uncomfortable than the silence of an audience working out if you have finished or not. The audience should know the end has come and respond immediately.

Key Points for leading up to the conclusion and delivering the conclusion

If summarising, don’t repeat your main points word for word; rather, paraphrase the key points.
Don’t introduce any new points, supportive evidence or ideas into your conclusion as it will confuse your audience.
Don’t end with audience questions or criticisms. If there has been a Q & A session, perhaps acknowledge the Q and A session, and then close with a condensed version of your original speech conclusion. This will reinforce your message so the audience takes the message home and is more likely to remember it.
If appropriate, consider using trigger phrases such as “in conclusion” or “in summary” to prepare your audience for the end of your speech.
The introduction and conclusion should be linked, and complement one another, or be the same.
End on a high note – craft the ending appropriate for the audience, topic and purpose of the speech so the audience will recall it in the weeks and months after its delivery. End with a bang, not a whimper.

Always choose a conclusion which is appropriate to your purpose of the speech, content and audience.

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How To End A Speech

Putting together and delivering an effective speech takes time and the right strategy. One of the most challenging aspects is figuring out how to end a speech effectively. You might have prepared a fantastic opening and delivered a compelling message, but if you fail to wrap up your speech in a powerful and memorable way, your audience may leave feeling unsatisfied or even forget what you said altogether.

Many speakers struggle with their closing words, whether it’s because they run out of time, they lose their train of thought, or they simply don’t know how to bring everything together in a cohesive and impactful way. This can lead to a lack of confidence, anxiety, and even embarrassment, all of which can significantly hinder your ability to communicate your message effectively.

In this article we’ll explore some proven tips and strategies, show you three simple techniques that summarize your message and key ideas, and explain how to get your audience members to take action. You’ll start delivering the final words of your speeches with confidence and know you’re leaving a lasting impression on your audience. Whether you’re a seasoned speaker looking to polish your skills or a newcomer to public speaking , this article will help you overcome the hurdles of ending a great speech so you can deliver a powerful and memorable message every time. Your last words will be your most impactful words.

Why is a Conclusion Important?

“Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of the ending.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The conclusion of your speech is arguably the most critical part. It’s the pinnacle of your persuasion, the culmination of everything you’ve talked about so far, and it’s the moment when you state your final call to action. This is why it’s crucial to devote sufficient time and attention to crafting your last inspiring words and final point.

Your conclusion is where you’ll leave your audience with the most significant take away from your speech. These closing words are the last impression they’ll have of you and your key message, and it’s where you can reinforce the key message points you’ve made throughout your presentation. By reiterating your main message and summarizing your key arguments, you can ensure that your audience remembers your message long after your speech is over in such a way that inspires them to take action.

The conclusion is also where you summarize your entire speech and make your final call to action. Whether it’s encouraging your audience to remember and take specific actions, supporting a particular cause, or adopting a new way of thinking, your conclusion is the time to motivate your audience to act. This is where you can challenge them to make a difference, do something, or think differently about a particular issue.

Most importantly, your conclusion can make or break your speech. A weak or ineffective ending can leave your audience feeling unimpressed or even confused, undermining the impact of your entire presentation up to that point. Conversely, a strong and impactful conclusion can leave a lasting impression on your audience, motivating them to take action and inspiring them to share your message with others. It even has the potential to turn an average persuasive speech into an unforgettable speech.

Because the conclusion of your speech is so important, it’s worth taking the time to ensure that your final words are as effective as possible. By crafting a strong and impactful conclusion, you can leave your audience with a lasting impression, and ensure that your message is remembered long after your closing statement.

BE AN EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATOR Suasive Presentation Coaching

What is a good closing message?

A good closing is a bookend to your opening, but is much more concise. It should resolve the entire presentation. In the beginning you grab your audience’s attention. Next you navigate them through all the parts. Finally you introduce your call to action so the audience knows what to expect. Your speech’s closing message should fulfill the classical requirements of any story: a strong beginning, a solid middle, and a decisive end.

To fully understand how your closing message connects with your opening you’ll need to first understand the three parts of your opening and how to think about them: Opening Gambit, USP, and Point B.

Opening Gambit

The Opening Gambit is a series of short sentences to get the audience engaged and establish a need for your idea, concept, or solution. Suasive recommends the following seven Opening Gambits .

Rhetorical question Get your audience thinking about your message by posing a meaningful question that is relevant to them. Scott Cook, the founding CEO of Intuit, used a rhetorical phrase when making a presentation at the Robertson, Stephens, and Company Technology Investment Conference in San Francisco. He began with: “Let me begin today’s presentation with a question. How many of you balance your checkbooks? May I see a show of hands?” Almost everyone’s hand went up. “Okay. Now how many of you like doing it?” Everyone’s hand went down. He had their focus because he got them moving their body and used an easy question that would resonate with everyone. If he had launched into his presentation with a detailed description of Quicken accounting software, he likely would have lost them. Instead, he engaged the audience with a personal question and got them focused on thinking about their checkbooks.
Factoid You can convert any question to a simple, striking statistic or factual statement to capture your audience’s attention. For instance, instead of asking, “How many iPhones are sold each year?” (which cedes control of the floor), turn it into a Factoid: “185 million iPhones are sold every year.” The Factoid you choose should be related to the main theme of your presentation and not just dropped in for shock value. We’ve all heard off-the-wall statements that only serve to throw the audience off track all the while never coming back to the main point thread or thesis.
Retrospective/Prospective A Retrospective (backward) or Prospective (forward) look allows you to grab your audience’s attention by moving them in one direction or another, away from their present, immediate concerns. Consider this technique as a flashback or flashforward, or “That was then, this is now.” For instance, you could refer to the way things used to be done, the way they are done now, and the way you project them being done in the future. Technology companies often choose to start their presentations with a look back to earlier functions to contrast how their new technology disrupts the same functionality: library search before the internet, cassette tapes before digital music, brick and mortar shopping before e-commerce, a rat’s nest of tangled wiring before Bluetooth, and keypad entry before facial recognition.
Anecdote An anecdote is a brief human interest story. “Personal stories” have recently become the holy grail of storytelling . A tsunami of consultants, courseware, workshops , seminars, blogs, and publications are now advising individuals and businesses to develop their great speeches and presentations by reaching deep inside themselves for a heartwarming opening anecdote. People naturally identify with other people, and a personal story can create empathy.
Quotation You can also use a relevant quotation from a well-known, reliable source such as William Shakespeare, Winston Churchill , John F. Kennedy, Tom Peters or, as many businesspeople do, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War . Yet the best famous quotation is something from a third party that credentializes you, your idea, or your company. Whichever you use, be sure to tie the quotation closely to your content.
Aphorism An aphorism is a well-known saying, maxim, or idiom. Because of its familiarity, as soon as you state an Aphorism, it rings a bell in your audience’s minds. They may not even recognize the source, but it brings them to attention.
Analogy Analogies help explain complex subjects. If your business involves highly technical or specialized products, services, or systems, a simple analogous comparison can help clarify. During the early days of the internet, companies developing networking products analogized the web to highways: with main roads to represent carriers, interchanges to represent routing and switching equipment, on-ramps and off-ramps to represent local carriers, and tolls to represent revenues.

COMMUNICATION WITH PURPOSE

Unique Selling Proposition

Once you’ve stated your Opening Gambit, it’s time for your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). The USP is a succinct summary of your business, describing the basic premise that describes what your company, product, or service does. One of the most common complaints about presentations is “I listened to them for 30 minutes, and I still don’t know what they do!” The USP is what they do.

The Opening Gambit grabbed your viewer’s attention and established need, and your USP demonstrates your solution to that need with maximum clarity. It summarizes the body or middle part of your speech. The best USPs are short and are communicated in one sentence.

Which company’s USP is “Melt in your mouth, not in your hand?”

Did you guess it? M&Ms of course.

Point B is your call to action. It’s how you end your speech with a bang and plan to bring your audience to action. The Opening Gambit, USP, and Point B are all connected in a sequence that feeds into one another.

Here’s an example of a full sequence from Opening Gambit to Point B.

Opening Gambit (Anecdote): Last year, one of Acme’s customers had a flood in their home. The sprinkler system broke and damaged all the furniture, carpets, and other possessions. Not only did they lose their home, they took a big financial hit.
Link: This customer is like many customers who purchase a basic policy not customized to their individual needs. That means being just one step away from disaster.
USP: Acme Insurance has a solution. We can provide you with a customized, value-added package of insurance that provides for your Individual needs to protect you against serious financial loss.
Proof of Concept (POC)–evidence that your USP is worthy: That’s why Acme is one of the fastest-growing insurance brokers in the state.
Link: I know that you’ll want to take advantage of this opportunity…
Point B: …and sign up for this important coverage today.

You can see how all three elements feed into each other. One can’t effectively exist without the other. What’s great about the three steps is they compromise your entire speech outline on a macro level, and you can also use them again on a micro level within the closing section of your presentation.

Three Ways to Close a Speech Effectively

“Tell ’em what you’ve told ’em” is a classic closing technique that involves summarizing your main points and reiterating your message in a clear and concise way. This technique helps to reinforce your key ideas and ensure that your audience remembers them long after your speech is over. By summarizing your main points and restating your message, you can drive home the key takeaways and leave a lasting impression on your audience.

“Tell ‘em what you’ve told ‘em” is your closing, a bookend to your opening, and includes three key elements: a Bookend Gambit (like the Opening Gambit but more concise), Recap (of the agenda and your main points), and Point B (call to action).

The Bookend Gambit is a powerful technique that involves referencing your Opening Gambit in your closing remarks. This technique creates a sense of closure and brings your presentation full circle, leaving your audience feeling satisfied and fulfilled.

A brief Recap of your agenda is the second element of the closing technique. By summarizing what you’ve covered you can reinforce the key points you’ve made and drive home your message in a powerful and impactful way.

Point B is the third element and involves making a clear and compelling call to action in your closing remarks. This technique encourages your audience to take specific actions based on the message you’ve delivered, whether it’s signing a petition, making a donation, or simply changing their behavior. By providing a clear and actionable next step, you can motivate your audience to take action and make a difference.

What is a Strong Concluding Statement?

A strong concluding statement is critical for leaving a long-term impression on your audience and motivating them to take action. You want to end your speech with your audience thinking about your objective, willing to do what you want them to do. It’s the last thing they hear you say at the end of your speech, and for many leading speakers it holds the most weight.

One of the most effective ways to close your speech with a bang is with a clear and concise call to action, also known as Point B as discussed above. This final remark should be a short and powerful statement that encapsulates the central message of your presentation and inspires your audience to act.

For example, let’s suppose that in your opening statement you said, “So that we can control our own destiny, I’m seeking your approval and a budget to start this unit.” In your closing statement, you might shorten this message to “All we need is your approval.” This statement is short, clear, and to the point, emphasizing the importance of your request.

Need Help Closing Your Speech?

Putting all the pieces of your speech or presentation together takes know how. The good news is because it’s more science than art, anyone can learn how to do it with the right training. A good presentation has all the parts of a good compelling story – a beginning, middle, and end. The only difference is the pacing and delivery techniques, but story is still at the heart. With practice and preparation, you can improve your speech writing and delivering skills, and make sure your ideas are heard and considered.

So whether you are preparing for a job interview, a presentation at work, or an entire speech in front of a large audience, remember to believe in yourself, focus on your key points, and prepare to the best of your ability. When it’s time to deliver your closing remarks, be sure to incorporate the three techniques you learned in this article and we’re confident you’ll make an impact.

How to tell your story so the audience feels it’s their story.

Suasive, Inc. is a Silicon Valley-based communication consulting company that offers public speaking classes for organizations and individuals. To date, we’ve coached over 600 CEOs and helped individuals in some of the world’s largest companies including Netflix , eBay , Sonos , Lyft , and Freshworks .

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Definition of conclusion

consequence
determination

Examples of conclusion in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'conclusion.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin conclusion-, conclusio , from concludere — see conclude

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Phrases Containing conclusion

bring to a conclusion
bring to conclusion
come to the conclusion
draw a conclusion
foregone conclusion
in conclusion
reach a conclusion
reach its conclusion

Dictionary Entries Near conclusion

concludingly

conclusional

Cite this Entry

“Conclusion.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conclusion. Accessed 24 Aug. 2024.

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Kids definition of conclusion, legal definition, legal definition of conclusion, more from merriam-webster on conclusion.

Nglish: Translation of conclusion for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of conclusion for Arabic Speakers

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Public Speaking: How to Write a Powerful Speech Conclusion

Conventional wisdom in the realm of public speaking is that your opening statement and closing statement must be perfect. While I agree that it’s important to develop these two parts of your speech, I don’t think they are as important as others make them out to be — which is the other extreme.

The goals of an effective speech conclusion:

There are generally two goals for an effective conclusion. They are:

To summarize the main points of your speech.
To motivate the audience to take action.

Please note that “leaving the audience with a positive impression of your wit” isn’t there, nor is “win an award for best written speech conclusion.” All too often, people put too much pressure on themselves to find a way to close their speech. “Thank you” is the worst way to end a speech profess many well-intentioned but ill-informed public speaking experts (I’ve heard this dozens of times at Toastmasters clubs during speech evaluations). I don’t see the harm — it’s fine to thank the audience at the end of your talk, as long as it’s sincere. So let’s look at your real goals.

Summarizing your main points is pretty straightforward. Most speeches have three to five main points, so including each of these in your summary is important. I’ve found it helpful to state a memorable fact or two about each point to help the audience retain the things I’ve said about each point — and this critical for longer talks (30 minutes or longer). I typically do my question and answer session right before my conclusion, so I may make some impromptu references to some interesting or related points that came up during Q&A. I also provide a mini-outline of the main points of my talk as a handout for longer talks (I also use it as a marketing tool).

Your Closing Statement:

Now on to the great controversy: your closing statement. Your goal for the closing statement is to get the audience to take action. Depending on your speech and your goals for giving the speech, it can fall into one or more of the following actions:

Think a certain way about the topic you presented.
Purchase a product or service.
Volunteer or sign up to do something.
Promote your topic.
Get others excited or interested in your topic.

Again, many people make this step overly difficult. Simply asking the audience in a sincere way to take the action is as effective as a well crafted conclusion. In fact, trying too hard to provide a memorable conclusion can sometimes turn off your audience. For example, if you’re selling a product and you conclude your pitch with:

So as you can see, our product has helped many people in your situation succeed. I hope you’ll give us the chance to help you succeed.

it’s quite different than:

Imagine your competition as tortoises, slowly trudging along the path to success with their blinders on, completely unaware that the resources they need for success are right at their finger tips. Then you, the hare, whiz by them at the speed light and all they feel a gentle breeze — this is the advantage to buying our product.

You can see that both are equally as effective even though the latter one is more descriptive and doesn’t really buy you anything. In fact, some people may find it corny.

So in summary, your conclusion should simply sum up the main points of your talk and encourage the audience to take action. My Dale Carnegie instructor and friend, Bob Arnold, once said that your closing statement can be as simple as something that reads like a newspaper headline. So don’t fret, just close.

And again, it’s perfectly acceptable in my book to thank the audience at the end of your speech.

James Feudo owns the Boston Web Design Agency JVF Solutions and loves blogging about personal development and communication in his spare time.

2 thoughts on “ Public Speaking: How to Write a Powerful Speech Conclusion ”

Nice post, James, simplifying the sometimes overwrought task of writing a conclusion.

I completely agree with you about thanking the audience at the end, by the way. I’ve written about thanking the audience a couple of times (you might say I’m a little obsessed with the issue):

http://coachlisab.blogspot.com/2007/03/do-you-thank-your-audience.html http://coachlisab.blogspot.com/2007/08/when-not-to-say-thank-you.html http://coachlisab.blogspot.com/2008/02/two-minutes-of-thank-yous.html

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Look up a word, learn it forever.

/kənˈkluʒən/.

Other forms: conclusions

A conclusion is the last part of something, its end or result. When you write a paper, you always end by summing up your arguments and drawing a conclusion about what you've been writing about.

The phrase in conclusion means "finally, to sum up," and is used to introduce some final comments at the end of a speech or piece of writing. The phrase jump to conclusions means "to come to a judgment without enough evidence." A foregone conclusion is an outcome that seems certain.

noun a position or opinion or judgment reached after consideration “his conclusion took the evidence into account” synonyms: decision , determination , verdict see more see less types: predetermination a mental determination or resolve in advance; an antecedent intention to do something type of: judgement , judgment , mind an opinion formed by judging something
noun the proposition arrived at by logical reasoning (such as the proposition that must follow from the major and minor premises of a syllogism) synonyms: ratiocination see more see less type of: proposition (logic) a statement that affirms or denies something and is either true or false
noun an intuitive assumption “jump to a conclusion ” see more see less types: non sequitur (logic) a conclusion that does not follow from the premises type of: assumption , supposal , supposition a hypothesis that is taken for granted
noun the act of making up your mind about something “he drew his conclusions quickly” synonyms: decision , determination see more see less types: show 12 types... hide 12 types... appointment , assignment , designation , naming the act of putting a person into a non-elective position call (sports) the decision made by an umpire or referee move the act of deciding to do something casting lots , drawing lots , sortition making a chance decision by using lots (straws or pebbles etc.) that are thrown or drawn resolution a decision to do something or to behave in a certain manner nomination the act of officially naming a candidate co-optation , co-option the act of appointing summarily (with or without the appointee's consent) delegacy the appointment of a delegate ordinance , ordination the act of ordaining; the act of conferring (or receiving) holy orders recognition designation by the chair granting a person the right to speak in a deliberative body demarche a move or step or maneuver in political or diplomatic affairs maneuver , manoeuvre , tactical maneuver , tactical manoeuvre a move made to gain a tactical end type of: choice , option , pick , selection the act of choosing or selecting
noun the temporal end; the concluding time synonyms: close , finale , finis , finish , last , stopping point see more see less type of: end , ending the point in time at which something ends
noun the act of ending something synonyms: ending , termination see more see less types: show 84 types... hide 84 types... abort the act of terminating a project or procedure before it is completed demonetisation , demonetization ending something (e.g. gold or silver) as no longer the legal tender of a country release , tone ending (music) the act or manner of terminating a musical phrase or tone closing , completion , culmination , mop up , windup a concluding action retirement withdrawal from your position or occupation relinquishing , relinquishment the act of giving up and abandoning a struggle or task etc. breakup , dissolution the termination or disintegration of a relationship (between persons or nations) overthrow the termination of a ruler or institution (especially by force) adjournment , dissolution the termination of a meeting discharge , dismissal , dismission , firing , heave-ho , liberation , release , sack , sacking the termination of someone's employment (leaving them free to depart) destruction , devastation the termination of something by causing so much damage to it that it cannot be repaired or no longer exists kill , killing , putting to death the act of terminating a life abolishment , abolition the act of abolishing a system or practice or institution (especially abolishing slavery) liquidation , settlement termination of a business operation by using its assets to discharge its liabilities drug withdrawal , withdrawal the termination of drug taking closedown , closing , closure , shutdown termination of operations extinction , extinguishing , quenching the act of extinguishing; causing to stop burning disappearance , fade gradually ceasing to be visible abortion termination of pregnancy deactivation , defusing the act of deactivating or making ineffective (as a bomb) discontinuance , discontinuation the act of discontinuing or breaking off; an interruption (temporary or permanent) consummation the act of bringing to completion or fruition consummation the completion of marriage by sexual intercourse superannuation the act of discharging someone because of age (especially to cause someone to retire from service on a pension) finish , finishing the act of finishing finalisation , finalization the act of finalizing follow-through carrying some project or intention to full completion follow-through the act of carrying a stroke to its natural completion graduation the successful completion of a program of study hibernation the act of retiring into inactivity rustication the action of retiring to and living in the country ceding , cession the act of ceding handover act of relinquishing property or authority etc discharge , release , waiver a formal written statement of relinquishment splitsville separation or breakup or divorce subversion , subversive activity the act of subverting; as overthrowing or destroying a legally constituted government conge , congee an abrupt and unceremonious dismissal removal dismissal from office disaster an act that has disastrous consequences kill the destruction of an enemy plane or ship or tank or missile laying waste , ruin , ruination , ruining , wrecking destruction achieved by causing something to be wrecked or ruined demolishing , leveling , razing , tearing down complete destruction of a building annihilation , obliteration destruction by annihilating something decimation the destruction or killing of a large part of the population (literally every tenth person as chosen by lot) coup de grace , deathblow the blow that kills (usually mercifully) death the act of killing euthanasia , mercy killing the act of killing someone painlessly (especially someone suffering from an incurable illness) homicide the killing of a human being by another human being despatch , dispatch killing a person or animal fell the act of felling something (as a tree) self-annihilation , self-destruction , suicide the act of killing yourself self-destruction the act of destroying yourself slaughter the killing of animals (as for food) poisoning the act of giving poison to a person or animal with the intent to kill asphyxiation , suffocation killing by depriving of oxygen ritual killing , sacrifice the act of killing (an animal or person) in order to propitiate a deity electrocution killing by electric shock beheading , decapitation killing by cutting off the head viatical settlement , viaticus settlement sale of an insurance policy by a terminally ill policy holder cold turkey complete and abrupt withdrawal of all addictive drugs or anything else on which you have become dependent plant closing act of shutting down operation of a plant bank closing act of closing down a bank because of a fiscal emergency or failure layoff the act of laying off an employee or a work force miscarriage , spontaneous abortion , stillbirth a natural loss of the products of conception induced abortion a deliberate termination of pregnancy deactivation , inactivation breaking up a military unit (by transfers or discharges) honorable discharge a discharge from the armed forces with a commendable record dishonorable discharge a discharge from the armed forces for a grave offense (as sabotage or espionage or cowardice or murder) Section Eight a discharge from the US Army based on unfitness or character traits deemed undesirable neutralisation , neutralization (euphemism) the removal of a threat by killing or destroying it (especially in a covert operation or military operation) disfranchisement the discontinuation of rights; especially the discontinuation of the right to vote disinheritance the act by a donor that terminates the right of a person to inherit phase-out the act or instance of a planned discontinuation prorogation discontinuation of the meeting (of a legislative body) without dissolving it annulment , invalidation (law) a formal termination (of a relationship or a judicial proceeding etc) sabotage a deliberate act of destruction or disruption in which equipment is damaged extermination , liquidation the act of exterminating genocide , race murder , racial extermination systematic killing of a racial or cultural group holocaust an act of mass destruction and loss of life (especially in war or by fire) demolition the act of demolishing spoliation (law) the intentional destruction of a document or an alteration of it that destroys its value as evidence hooliganism , malicious mischief , vandalism willful wanton and malicious destruction of the property of others dismount the act of dismounting (a horse or bike etc.) explosion , plosion the terminal forced release of pressure built up during the occlusive phase of a stop consonant type of: change of state the act of changing something into something different in essential characteristics
noun event whose occurrence ends something synonyms: ending , finish see more see less types: show 47 types... hide 47 types... end , final stage , last the concluding parts of an event or occurrence final result , outcome , result , resultant , termination something that results foregone conclusion , matter of course an inevitable ending demolition , destruction , wipeout an event (or the result of an event) that completely destroys something Z , omega the ending of a series or sequence halt , kibosh , stop the event of something ending triumph , victory a successful ending of a struggle or contest defeat , licking an unsuccessful ending to a struggle or contest end game , endgame the final stages of a chess game after most of the pieces have been removed from the board end game , endgame the final stages of an extended process of negotiation homestretch the end of an enterprise passing the end of something denouement the outcome of a complex sequence of events deal the type of treatment received (especially as the result of an agreement) decision the outcome of a game or contest decision (boxing) a victory won on points when no knockout has occurred aftermath , consequence the outcome of an event especially as relative to an individual just deserts , poetic justice an outcome in which virtue triumphs over vice (often ironically) separation the termination of employment (by resignation or dismissal) sequel , subsequence something that follows something else worst the least favorable outcome annihilation , disintegration total destruction eradication , obliteration the complete destruction of every trace of something depredation , ravage (usually plural) a destructive action razing , wrecking the event of a structure being completely demolished and leveled ruin , ruination an event that results in destruction rack , wrack the destruction or collapse of something win a victory (as in a race or other competition) cessation , surcease a stopping stand , standstill , tie-up an interruption of normal activity fall , pin when a wrestler's shoulders are forced to the mat independence the successful ending of the American Revolution landslide an overwhelming electoral victory last laugh ultimate success achieved after a near failure (inspired by the saying `he laughs best who laughs last') Pyrrhic victory a victory that is won by incurring terrible losses slam , sweep winning all or all but one of the tricks in bridge checkmate complete victory blowout , laugher , romp , runaway , shoo-in , walkaway an easy victory service break a tennis game won on the opponent's service walk-in , waltz an assured victory (especially in an election) heartbreaker a narrow defeat or a defeat at the last minute lurch a decisive defeat in a game (especially in cribbage) rout an overwhelming defeat shutout , skunk a defeat in a game where one side fails to score debacle , drubbing , slaughter , thrashing , trouncing , walloping , whipping a sound defeat waterloo a final crushing defeat whitewash a defeat in which the losing person or team fails to score type of: happening , natural event , occurrence , occurrent an event that happens
noun a final settlement “the conclusion of a business deal” “the conclusion of the peace treaty” see more see less type of: settlement a conclusive resolution of a matter and disposition of it
noun the last section of a communication “in conclusion I want to say...” synonyms: close , closing , end , ending see more see less types: show 5 types... hide 5 types... anticlimax , bathos a change from a serious subject to a disappointing one afterword , epilog , epilogue a short section added at the end of a literary work epilog , epilogue a short speech (often in verse) addressed directly to the audience by an actor at the end of a play peroration (rhetoric) the concluding section of an oration coda , finale the closing section of a musical composition type of: section , subdivision a self-contained part of a larger composition (written or musical)

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IMAGES

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Conclusion Examples: Strong Endings for Any Paper
How to write a conclusion in a college essay
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How To Write A Conclusion Statement For An Essay

COMMENTS

Closing a Speech: End with Power and Let Them Know It is Time to Clap
The first few words of your speech make the audience want to listen and the last few sentences help them decide what they feel about you and your topic. In this chapter, I will explain the function of a conclusion, the format of a conclusion, and I will give you numerous examples of ways to end your speech.
11.2 Steps of a Conclusion
An effective conclusion contains three basic parts: a restatement of the speech's thesis; a review of the main points discussed within the speech; and a concluding device that helps create a lasting image in audiences' minds. Miller (1946) found that speakers tend to use one of ten concluding devices.
How to Write a Conclusion, With Examples
Discover how to write a conclusion to help summarize main points or intoroduce final comments at the end of a speech or piece of writing and more.
Functions of Conclusions
Just as with introductions, conclusions have specific functions to fulfill within a speech. And just as with introductions, there are a number of types of conclusions. In this section of this chapter, we will look at these functions, discuss the relationship between introductions and conclusions, and offer some strategies for preparing and delivering an effective conclusion.
Purpose of a Speech Conclusion
A conclusion should include a clear review of the main points of the speech. The purpose is to remind the audience of the main ideas that were covered in the speech.
Concluding the Speech
Concluding Device. The final part of a powerful conclusion is the concluding device. A concluding device, also called a clincher, is essentially the final thought you want your audience members to have when you stop speaking. It also provides a memorable and definitive sense of closure to your speech.
Speech Conclusions
Looking for a good way to end your speech? Get tips on polishing your speech conclusion from the Writing Speaking Center at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Writing a Conclusion
An effective conclusion contains three basic parts: a restatement of the speech's thesis; a review of the main points discussed within the speech; and a concluding device that helps create a lasting image in audiences' minds. Miller (1946) found that speakers tend to use one of ten concluding devices.
How to Conclude an Essay
Step 1: Return to your thesis. To begin your conclusion, signal that the essay is coming to an end by returning to your overall argument. Don't just repeat your thesis statement —instead, try to rephrase your argument in a way that shows how it has been developed since the introduction. Example: Returning to the thesis.
Speech Conclusions: Role & Components
The speech's conclusion is the last thing the audience will hear, and it helps highlight the key points they should remember after the presentation. Explore the role of a conclusion and discover ...
Structuring the Conclusion and Examples
Element 2: Restate Main Points. In the introduction of a speech you delivered a preview of your main points; now in the conclusion you will deliver a review. One of the biggest differences between written and oral communication is the necessity of repetition in oral communication (the issue of "planned redundancy" again).
How to end a speech effectively
Examples of effective speech conclusions, with audio, to help prepare a memorable closing statement to support your speech purpose.
Writing the Conclusion of a Speech
One of the best ways to conclude a speech is to tie the conclusion into the introduction. For example, you might begin your speech by telling a suspenseful story that relates to your topic, but save the end of the story for the very end of your speech. Or refer back to the same quotation. Or refer to the joke that you told.
10.2 Conclusions
The introduction and conclusion are the last part of creating your speech, but they should receive the same attention as the body of your speech. This is the opportunity to get the audience's attention and draw them in, and to leave them something to think about. Your introduction and conclusion should be thought of as bookends to the speech ...
Functions of Conclusions
A speech, effectively structured and delivered, should move smoothly from point to point and then to the conclusion. One of the most important functions of the conclusion is to prepare the audience for the end of the speech. Throughout the speech, you have been providing the audience with verbal and nonverbal cues to where you are going in the ...
3 Ways to Conclude a Speech
3 Make the topic seem important. The speech should do a lot to present a case and lots of details to your audience, but the conclusion can be a great opportunity to make those points important. Depending on the nature of your speech, if you've just presented a lot of complex details about climate change, the ending might be an appropriate time to introduce your first case study, or personal ...
Conclusion: Definition and Examples in Compositions
The "conclusion" of an essay or speech refers to the sentences or paragraphs that bring it to a satisfying and logical end.
Writing and Revising the Conclusion
The next step is now to ensure that your conclusion is as strong as it can be by carefully writing and revising it. Question #1: How long is my conclusion? Begin by ensuring that your conclusion is no longer than 5-10% of your total speech. That means that in a five-minute speech, your conclusion will last between 15 and 30 seconds.
Planning a Speech Conclusion
Planning a speech conclusion. An effective speech opens, gaining, listener's attention, develop each point, for a memorable ending.
How To End A Speech
Conversely, a strong and impactful conclusion can leave a lasting impression on your audience, motivating them to take action and inspiring them to share your message with others. It even has the potential to turn an average persuasive speech into an unforgettable speech. Because the conclusion of your speech is so important, it's worth ...
Conclusion Definition & Meaning
The meaning of CONCLUSION is a reasoned judgment : inference. How to use conclusion in a sentence.
Public Speaking: How to Write a Powerful Speech Conclusion
The speech conclusion is another often overlooked part of a speech. In its most ugly form, the speaker, realizing that he or she has no more to say, simply looks at the audience with a blank stare until finally blurting
Conclusion
A conclusion is the last part of something, its end or result. When you write a paper, you always end by summing up your arguments and drawing a conclusion about what you've been writing about.

9 Closing a Speech: End with Power and Let Them Know It is Time to Clap

A Strong Closing Does Many Things

The Formula for Closing Most Speeches

Closing Phrases

End with Powerful Words

End by Circling Back to the Opening

End With Quote

End with a Graphic

End with Parallel Construction

End on a Positive Note

End with a Challenge

End with Inspiration

End with Well Wishing

End with Humor

End with a Call to Action

End with a Feeling of Resolve

End with a Prop

Memorize Your Conclusion

“Any Questions?”

“Let Me Add This Point I Missed”

“Thank You to the Team”

“I’m Sorry”

“I’ll Close with this Video”

To Thank or Not to Thank, That is the Question

Maximizing the Primacy Recency Effect

Do You Have Everything You Need for a Strong Closing?

Getting Off the Platform is Part of Your Closing

Media Attributions

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11.2 Steps of a Conclusion

Restatement of the Thesis

Review of Main Points

Concluding Device

Conclude with a Challenge

Conclude with a Quotation

Conclude with a Summary

Conclude by Visualizing the Future

Conclude with an Appeal for Action

Conclude by Inspiration

Conclude with Advice

Conclude by Proposing a Solution

Conclude with a Question

Conclude with a Reference to Audience

Informative versus Persuasive Conclusions

Key Takeaways

Share This Book

Speech conclusions

Conclusions

Signal the ending

Logical conclusion

Psychological conclusion

Writing a Conclusion

11.1 Why Conclusions Matter

Signals the End

Aids Audience’s Memory of Your Speech

KEY TAKEAWAYS

11.2 Steps of a Conclusion

Restatement of the Thesis

Review of Main Points

Concluding Device

Conclude with a Challenge

Conclude with a Quotation

Conclude with a Summary

Conclude by Visualizing the Future

Conclude with an Appeal for Action

Conclude by Inspiration

Conclude with Advice

Conclude by Proposing a Solution

Conclude with a Question

Conclude with a Reference to Audience

Informative versus Persuasive Conclusions

11.3 Analyzing a Conclusion

Sample Conclusion: Smart Dust

11.4 Chapter Exercises

END-OF-CHAPTER ASSESSMENT

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