Congratulations, you are almost there! You have completed your dissertation, and it is time to write your conclusion. This section of your thesis will be extremely important as it will allow you to summarise what you have done and the results, so make sure that this section is well-written and effective. However, many writers struggle with concluding their work because they make common mistakes while writing their conclusions. In this blog post, we will discuss some of the common mistakes to avoid in the dissertation conclusion and how to avoid them:
1. Not proofreading your conclusion
Your conclusion needs to be clear, concise, and well-written so readers can understand what you are trying to say.
For this process to occur smoothly, some things must be taken into consideration when writing a dissertation conclusion:
- You have a good grasp of the language used in your field (and discipline). If some words or phrases may not be familiar or commonly used by people who read dissertations, you must define these words before using them within one’s work.
- Make sure there aren’t any spelling mistakes! Spelling errors are very unprofessional! They make it appear that the person doing so does not care about their work or doesn’t respect their audience enough, which makes them look lazy and incompetent at best!
- Please make sure there aren’t any grammatical mistakes either because they will detract from whatever message(s) may have been conveyed by way of the text thus far while reading through chapters 1 through 9 out loud with someone else nearby who isn’t necessarily familiar with linguistics or cares much about them either way but still wants something interesting enough here before falling asleep tonight after spending all day yesterday worrying about tomorrow being Monday again soon enough (which means back again soon).
2. Failing to summarise your main points
Your dissertation conclusion should be a summary of the main points of your research, as well as what you want to get across to your audience. It’s important to remember that although this is the last section of your dissertation, it’s also one of the most important because it gives readers their final impression of your work.
So make sure you have a clear idea of what you want to say, and don’t forget to mention any limitations in your study.
3. Presenting new material in your conclusion
- Don’t present new material in your conclusion. You’ve done all the hard work of researching and testing a thesis, so don’t make your audience read through it again at the end.
- Don’t introduce new concepts in your conclusion. Instead of introducing some big idea that needs explaining before it can be used, save this for later chapters or appendices where you can explore these ideas in more detail and have an opportunity to provide appropriate background information as well.
- Don’t present new data in your conclusion; save those for future papers! This is especially true if the data is only useful for one particular section: wait until then before using it because otherwise, you’ll unnecessarily confuse readers by shifting the focus too much from one part of your research to another (and if multiple pieces of evidence belong together, then consider using a table format instead).
- Don’t introduce new theories during this stage either—this should happen earlier when discussing results rather than later when summarizing what was learned about them! There may still be room for speculation (but no more than necessary). Most importantly, don’t stray too far off course into unrelated territory just because “it seems like something else could be happening here…
4. Not making recommendations
Make sure you have recommendations. It’s important to note that your recommendations should be based on the findings of your research, not just guesses or opinions. They should also be specific and actionable, realistic and achievable, relevant to your audience, and supported by evidence from your research.
5. Not linking your conclusion to your introduction
It’s common for students to think that their dissertation conclusion should be a summary of their findings or a reiteration of what was said in their introduction. It is important to realize that your introduction is not just another part of your paper. Instead, it is where you set the stage for what will occur throughout the paper itself.
The conclusion shouldn’t just reiterate what was said in the introduction; instead, it should tie together everything discussed in earlier sections and show how they all come together to form an argument about some aspect(s) of academic communication within your topic area(s). Have you established proof beyond a reasonable doubt? If so, state it here! Are there any gaps in your argument that need further exploration? Here’s where you can address those issues by outlining future research possibilities (and noting which chapters were most helpful as starting points).
Not only do conclusions need to provide closure, but they also need an appropriate level of brevity since many readers may not have time to read long paragraphs at this point!
6. Avoid being overly self-assured.
As you arrive at your conclusion, it is important to remember to avoid being overly confident. Your audience may feel that they have been misled by your dissertation’s previous (and still-to-come) sections and thus become mistrustful of everything else you have said. By overstating your results, you can appear arrogant or—worse yet—come across as backward in your thinking. By overstating your results, you can appear arrogant or—worse yet—come across as backward in your thinking.
Avoiding this pitfall requires self-awareness; it will be easy to overlook how closely related confidence and overconfidence are when speaking about something that matters deeply to you. If possible, seek feedback from others who have read drafts of your work before making any changes based on this feedback.
7. Do not conclude an end in itself.
The conclusion should be a summary of your research, not an end. You could argue that the conclusion is unnecessary, but it’s critical to present your research findings clearly and concisely so that readers can understand them easily. If you have done everything right up until this point (and you should have), the conclusion will flow naturally from the scope and focus of your dissertation. You don’t want to make people struggle with what you’ve written or try to figure out what it means—so keep them on board by giving them a clear idea of where things are going next!
8. Avoid being too repetitive.
It’s unnecessary to say something more than once in your dissertation conclusion. You should avoid repeating yourself and the same ideas, words, arguments, sentences, and so on. For example:
- Avoid repeating yourself by not repeating the same data or statistics in your dissertation conclusion as you did for previous sections of your thesis.
- Don’t repeat graphs from previous chapters either! You don’t need to repeatedly show that pie chart when talking about how many people like chocolate ice cream versus strawberry ice cream unless I guess it was really important. So maybe mention it again if you’re sure someone will find it relevant/important/useful enough to warrant another reference… but still try not to go overboard with this one either!
9. Keep it short, precise, and focused.
The conclusion is the last part of your dissertation, so it should be short. The conclusion should also be precise. The introduction needs to set up your argument, and the body must lay out evidence and support for that argument; in contrast, the conclusion should bring all of this together into a concise final statement. Finally, if you have not already done so in your introduction or early chapters, make sure that you address any major issues or objections which may exist within your research topic area (or elsewhere). The conclusion must provide a logical extension from what has come before it – so make sure you don’t lose track of who is giving whom due credit!
10. Avoid making the results an excuse for not writing a good conclusion.
A common mistake that many students make is to use the results section to justify weak conclusions. It is tempting to say “the results are not conclusive” when you have not written a good conclusion, but this is a bad idea! The point of a dissertation conclusion is to summarize your findings and recommend how they should be used going forward. If there are no recommendations or findings, you need to rewrite the end of your paper before it gets graded (and make sure that your committee agrees with these new conclusions).
11. Do not try to move beyond the premises of your study.
e conclusions of your dissertation are meant to address the question you set out to answer. They are not a place to prove yourself or show off your knowledge by going beyond the scope of what you have researched. This is a common mistake, and you can avoid it very easily. This is a common mistake, and you can avoid it very easily.
One reason for this is that the results of your study should speak for themselves; there’s no need for an explanation or justification in their own right (though they may be included as part of a larger argument). Another reason is that moving beyond the scope of what you’ve researched risks making claims that go beyond what you know—and if someone reads those claims as facts, they could end up believing something false about reality.
Conclusion on Mistakes To Avoid in The Dissertation Conclusion
Hopefully, the tips above will help you to be more confident when presenting your dissertation conclusion. Keep these in mind while you are writing and researching so that they become second nature when presenting your work. It is important to remember that as long as you have done all the hard work necessary, there is no real reason why anyone should criticize or judge your research too harshly! Keep these in mind while you are writing and researching so that they become second nature when presenting your work.
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