Conclusions (again)

My plan was to move on to a 5-paragraph essay, but now it seems prudent to work a little longer on the 3-paragraph essay. Let's review the basics:

A paragraph must have a topic sentence, and all the other sentences must relate to that topic sentence.

The essay should begin with a strong statement. To some extent, this is the "topic sentence" of the whole essay, but each paragraph must have its own topic sentence. It need not be the topic sentence of the first paragraph, but usually it will be.

The concluding sentence should consider all the information in the essay, relate that information back to that first strong statement, and extend your ideas beyond what has already been presented.

Here's another three-paragraph essay, as an example.

Everywhere I go in Yilan, I see garbage all around me -- and that's just not right. It washes up on the beach, creating a line of trash at the high tide mark. The rice fields are full of plastic bags and bottles, and a thin film of oil can be seen when they are flooded. The garbage burning plant in Wu Jie releases dioxin and other harmful chemicals into the air. Ironically, Yilan is not much cleaner than the huge city of Taipei.

What we need are strict rules to restrict the production of garbage, so that we gradually eliminate the need to store or burn it. Ideally, factories would be prohibitted from producing anything at all that cannot be recycled. Plastics do not belong on the beach and in rice fields, and the dumping of gargage should be punished by large fines. With strong leadership from the national and county governments, the trend, toward ever more garbage littering Yilan, could be mitigated.

Such legislation, important as it is, will still leave an enormous amount of existing garbage, that will not go away by itself. We must cooperate to clean up the county, picking up gargage from beaches, fields, roads, streams and from around our own neighborhoods. With or without government leadership in our cleanup efforts, all of us should engage in this important activity. We should join together in groups to clean up specific locations, and celebrate together when that area is clean. I, for one, plan to pick up garbage on hiking trails whenever I encounter it, so that at least our most scenic paths will be clean and natural for the people behind me.

..................................

Okay, the first paragraph talks about the existing problem, and the topic sentence is the first one.

The second paragraph discusses the role of government, and the first sentence is the topic sentence.

The third paragraph is about what we can do as individuals. Here, the second sentence is the topic sentence. (The first one contributes to that idea, but is also a transition from the previous paragraph: government efforts are not enough, and there's still a problem.)

The last sentence both supports the topic sentence of its own (third) paragraph and answers the first sentence of the essay. Both sentences talk about "I": in the introductory sentence I note the problem with some disgust, and in the concluding sentence I respond with my own action. This carries the whole essay with it, encouraging others to follow my example. If you agreed with the introductory sentence, you will see value in the conclusion (and hopefully choose to do something like what I have done).

The concluding sentence does not just restate the material in the essay, but extends to a further conclusion, answering the question "So what?". I often see "conclusions" like this:

"And so, to sum up, I feel that it is very bad."

But that doesn't answer the question, "So what?".

Actually, the conclusion is usually the most important statement you will make in the essay, and is the one people will remember. The second most important statement is the first sentence (or the topic sentence of the first paragraph). To take an extreme example, you might begin with "Sex is good.", and end with "We both want to feel better, so why don't you come home with me tonight?" If your essay is successful, the answer will be "Sure, okay!". Your audience may forget what you wrote in the middle, but those two ideas will make a big impression.

Similarly, the idea that garbage is a problem needing a solution should be proved by my essay. But then the reader will ask "So what?". So I answer that question by volunteering to help (and implying that you should, too). The audience may not care much about government laws, but they will get the idea that (A) there's a problem and (B) the writer is doing something about it. That challenges the reader to do something too, if I'm successful.