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Hi it's Wendy from Worldwide Speak and today I'd like to talk to you about the concluding sentence. English language learners specifically, when you begin writing paragraphs in English, you are going to need to know how to end the paragraph. And we end our paragraph with a concluding sentence. To conclude means to end, so in this video you're going to learn how to write a fantastic concluding sentence to end your paragraph well. You ready? Let's learn. All right so what is a concluding sentence? Let's go over the main parts that you need to have in order to have a strong concluding sentence. Well first of all it's the last sentence of the paragraph. Remember I just said that to conclude means to end? Well a concluding sentence ends your paragraph. It typically begins with a transition word that signals to the reader - "hey this is the end of my thought" or "this is the end of my paragraph." It also can restate the topic sentence. Remember your topic sentence talks about your main topic, your main idea and the controlling idea which narrows the focus of your paragraph. It would just remind the reader about your topic and your controlling idea. And also the concluding sentence can leave the reader thinking about something that you wrote like a prediction, a suggestion, an opinion. We want the reader not only to read your paragraph, but we want them to think about your paragraph so when you think about writing a strong concluding sentence, think about it like a gift, right? The main idea is the present. You know it's inside the gift, but we end that gift by wrapping it with a bow. And the concluding sentence like that bow wraps up your paragraph like the bow wraps up that present you're going to give somebody. So how do I write a concluding sentence? Let's take a look at a topic sentence for a paragraph about training for a marathon.The topic sentence reads "Training for a marathon involves a lot of discipline." Right, training for the marathon is our topic. It's the subject of our paragraph, but we needed to focus a little bit more because that's a pretty big topic, and so we focused on the fact that it takes a lot of discipline. So in our paragraph we wrote about all the ways that you have to be disciplined or that you have to be really focused in order to train for a marathon. Well what would a good concluding sentence look like for this paragraph? Alright, so this concluding sentence begins with a transition word (like I mentioned before, one of the pieces we need for a strong concluding sentence). It restates the topic of the paragraph but uses synonyms or uses different words. Actually here I wrote out the number 26.2 to represent the word "marathon" so I wasn't repeating the word marathon and then it also revisits the controlling idea to remind the reader about what they read in your paragraph. And instead of saying "a lot of discipline," I chose to rephrase that - something that means a similar thing but uses different words again, and I wrote "a great deal of hard work." And then what I also did is you can see in the topic sentence the topic is first and the controlling idea is second. In my concluding sentence I just switched that order again to provide some more variety so I'm not repeating the topic sentence exactly because that would be really boring for your reader, and they might just finish your paragraph quickly and not stay thinking about it like you want them to do. And also one more thing: at the end I added the fact that you make it across the finish line so that it leaves an image of a marathon runner crossing the finish line in the mind of the reader so that image stays with them a little bit longer after they've read your paragraph. Okay let's go over some of the tips I mentioned for a strong concluding sentence. First of all, use synonyms use words that are similar to the ones you use in your topic sentence, but not the same. You want to change the wording around so that it's still interesting all the way to the end of your paragraph like I did in the example previously. When I said instead of saying "a lot of discipline," I said "a great deal of hard work." Now you should also use some sort of transition word to begin your sentence, and that tells the reader "hey I'm ending this paragraph." So it's nice because like the transition, there are bridges between your sentences so that your sentences flow together really well. And when that transition is there it causes the flow to be really smooth for the reader, and they realize "the paragraph is ending, and I'm prepared." Then you also can switch the order of the topic and the controlling idea. Like in the previous example I had "training for a marathon" and "a lot of discipline," and then i just switched the order in the concluding sentence, and I put "a great deal of hard work" first and then "running 26.2 miles." And when we switch up that order it creates variety, and again it makes the sentence more interesting. And lastly you want to give the reader something to think about at the end. You're not just writing this paragraph for no reason. Your paragraph has a purpose, and it's always to get into the mind of your reader. And when you have a super strong concluding sentence, that reader continues to think about what you wrote for a while after they've finished reading. And you want them to be thinking about what you wrote because let's say you wrote an opinion paragraph, and you want to change their mind and your concluding sentence is super strong. Well they're going to think about your opinion and maybe they'll change their mind to agree with you. I'd like to take a moment here to include some transitions for a concluding sentence, conclusion transitions. These are not all of them, but these are some that will help you strengthen your writing by including them in your concluding sentence. We have as a "result," "clearly," "finally," "for these reasons," "in brief," "in sum," "in the end," "overall," and "thus." And I'd like you to notice that there is a comma after all of these transition words. That's super important because without the comma, your sentence is grammatically incorrect. A lot of times when my students are starting out and they start writing transitions and they're starting writing paragraphs in English, I just tell them to pick the transition that they can spell easily, and once they've mastered that, then they can move on to the next one. So don't feel overwhelmed by all of these transition words. Just pick one or two to start out with, get comfortable using, and then you can move on to using other ones. Next I'd like to just give you a few example concluding sentences with some of these transitions. For example: "In brief, these steps make it very easy to save money each month." This is a concluding sentence probably for a paragraph about um ways that you can save money each month. Another one: "In the end, Chicago is a fantastic vacation spot during the summer." So this paragraph was probably um an opinion paragraph trying to convince somebody to go to Chicago for a vacation in the summer. And lastly, we have: "Thus, staying out of debt has numerous advantages." Again probably a paragraph discussing why you should stay out of debt um and how it's a good thing in your life. So you can see here we have a bunch of transition words, and then we have a few examples. So feel free to pause the video and take a screenshot of this, or write them down so that you can start using them in your writing as soon as possible. The second part of this video I want to go over four different concluding sentences that are used in different types of paragraphs. I think this will help you get a better understanding of what the concluding sentence is and what it looks like in different types of paragraphs. The more examples we go through, the better off you'll be in internalizing this information and then using it on your own. So first let's say I were writing a descriptive paragraph and it's going to describe this dish. I talk about to the reader. The topic sentence is: "My favorite childhood dish was my mom's chicken Marbella." The topic is the childhood dish. The controlling idea is the chicken Marbella. Now if i'm just going to write a simple beginning concluding sentence it would look like this: "Thus, when Icook this fabulous recipe, I forever remember my mother and how her chicken Marbella was so special." As you can see here, I restate the topic. I talk about the recipe. Instead of using the word "dish," I use the word "recipe." And and then instead of using "my mom's chicken Marbella," I use the pronoun "her" just to make it a little bit different. And so this concluding sentence is a pretty simple one. It just restates the topic sentence. It uses some synonyms, and it leaves the reader with a feeling of how wonderful and how special that dish was. Let's take a look at another one. This is for a compare/ contrast paragraph that shows how two cities are alike. Let's look at the topic sentence: "Chicago and Houston have many similar qualities." The topic (Chicago and Houston) and our controlling idea - our focus of the paragraph, - was showing similarities. Another basic concluding sentence would look like this: "In sum, there are a great deal of similarities between the Windy City and H-town." What I did here, I use the transition "in sum" and I put the controlling idea first to give a little more variety and instead of saying similar qualities, I say: "a great deal of similarities" (synonym there) and then um I refer to the topic second and that's Chicago and Houston but I use the nicknames for those cities which is the "Windy City" for Chicago and "H-town" for Houston to give my sentence more variety and to make it more interesting for the reader. Okay let's look at a couple more. This one is for a process paragraph that will show you what you have to do to obtain your driver's license. The topic sentence reads: "There are a variety of steps needed in order to get your driver's license." Well the topic or the subject of the paragraph is getting the driver's license, right? And we narrow that focus down with our controlling idea of the steps. So what would a good concluding sentence look like? It would look like this: "Finally, you will have no problems obtaining your driver's license when you follow these steps." Well, I have restated the topic and instead of using the word "get," I use "obtain" (again, a little variety, a synonym). And then for the controlling idea, "a variety of steps," I say "follow these steps" just to make it again a little bit different. And then I put a third piece in this concluding sentence to make a little prediction so that my reader is thinking about my paper when they finish or my paragraph when they finish. I say "you will have no problems" so that's making a prediction for the reader. If you read my paragraph and you follow these steps exactly, you are not going to have any problems when you go to get your driver's license. And last, let's talk about the opinion paragraph. This will show why cell phones are useful at school. My topic sentence: "Cell phones can be useful learning tools in the classroom." So that's my opinion, and I'm trying to convince you. The topic is cell phones and the focus of the paragraph is to show that they are useful learning tools in the classroom. So our concluding sentence would look like this, and it would read: "Clearly, with all of the engaging, hands-on learning that takes place when utilizing cell phones as part of the curriculum, educators should start using them today." Now let's take a look at this more closely. We have "cell phones" that we use again restating the topic, and we use the same word because pretty much that's the only word that we can use for cell phones. We could use another one, but it might actually be a little confusing because we were specifically just talking about cell phones and not all electronic devices. And then the controllindea instead of saying "useful learning tools," I go a step further to describe how they're useful, and I say that they're good for engaging, hands- on learning. And I show how it's a useful tool, actually, in the sentence, and then lastly I leave the reader with a suggestion and that means I want them to think about using these cell phones. You know maybe I have an educator reading my paper and they think "oh! after reading this paragraph, I'm going to start using cell phones in my classroom." And so I say "educators should start using them today," and that is my suggestion for the reader. So you can see here we've restated the topic and controlling idea and then left the reader with something to think about. Alright, so to recap: What is the job of the concluding sentence? Well the first thing we have here is that the it shows the reader that it's coming to an end and we often do this by using a transition word. Remember I had gone over a bunch of them in this video. Second, we want to remind the reader of the topic and we restate the topic sentence. And we do that by using synonyms. We use different words, and we often switch the order of topic and controlling idea. And lastly, we want to keep them thinking about our writing after they've read it. We can do this by giving an opinion, a suggestion, or a prediction. So there you have it. thinking about the concluding sentence, you want to remember these points and also remember: like the bow on a package, it wraps up your paragraph and makes it not only interesting but also super strong. Thank you so much for learning with us, and if you have any questions about this concluding sentence or any confusion, please drop me a note down below and I will be happy to help you. Thank you so much. Take care.