writing conclusions

Writing conclusions | Richard Colclough | September 10th, 2002

Hello all,

I've become a little unhappy about the quality of conclusions written by learners on EAP courses. Basically, they often seem to be too short (as though the students have exhausted their ideas), do little beyond summarising the main body, and contain facile statements like "Overall, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages" without any supporting info. I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts. More specifically, does anyone know of any genre analysis work on conclusions similar to that done by Swales on introductions? Are there typical moves made in a similar way?

On the same theme, I've been looking at "The UVic Writer's Guide" on the web and have found a nice point which compares introductions to inverted triangles because the focus narrows but looks upon conclusions as a triangle stood on its base, representing a broadening. Any thoughts?

Well, I've been rabbiting on for a while so I'll end by thanking all you regular contributors!

Ted

Conclusions in writing | Francesca Michalski | September 10th, 2002

Ted,

Francseca here... How interesting to hear your thoughts on weak conclusions from learners. My students also have this problem and as part of my MAP assignment I analysed ten newspaper editorials to see how they were oganised. I identified three formats for conclusions that I later confirmed with a professional journalist as possible formats followed by writers when giving their opinion (something often required in formal exam writing for discursive essays). The three formats all reiterate viewpoints or summarise arguments given (as our students do) but they also have another element, which, as you mentioned, broadens out the triangle.

This may be to either:

1. Offer a new angle on the issue not mentioned in the text so far.

2. Make gloomy premonitions about the future if your suggestions are not taken up (appropriate for essays discussing problems such as pollution and asking for solutions to the problem).

3. Predict what will happen in the future regarding this issue.

Another option is for the writer is to go back to his introductory paragraph and make a link with it in some way. For example, if he writes about pets and begins with a personal anecdote about his own pet dog Fifi, he could touch on the topic of Fifi again at the end.

As for material about conclusions, I haven't seen anything which goes beyond the normal 'reiterate the main points' stance. I'd be pleased to know if anyone has a reference to offer.

Hope to have been of some help to you,

Francesca

Re: writing conclusions | Darin Bicknell | September 10th, 2002

Not just conclusions... here is a sample of a recent IELTS essays emailed to me by a student from China in Secondary 4, (Year 10), who has had some work on developing not just conclusions, but the whole essay in terms of Task Fulfillment (TF) and Coherence and Cohesion (CC) for a Task 1. For a Task 2 I concentrate on Arguments, Ideas and Evidence (AIE) and Communicative Quality (CQ). Both tasks are also graded on Vocabulary and Sentence Structure (VSS), so that I cover some grammar points with regards to Determiners and Conjunctions as well trying to have them develop their vocabulary specific to the needs of the IELTS.

With such a short course I have been working on TF and CC and AIE and CQ in terms of having students plan the essay and think about the order of the information so that the reader can at least follow along regardless of VSS errors that are always present.

Let me know what you think and compare it to what your students are producing... good luck. If you are interested in the concordances for these essays and others I have started to compile a range of samples from my students work for the past year. It is really interesting to see how students improve at least with regards to following the ideas through the essays if not the spelling and grammar problems... so little time! What would you suggest this student do to improve their written work on their own?

Darin

Task 1 : Write a report on the graphs (Descriptive, 20 minutes 150 words)

The graphs show the amount of fish caught in the three largest oceans and the consumption of catch by China, Japan, US, Russia, and India. This report will focus on the consumption by nations and the productivity of the oceans.

From graph one,we can see the largest productivity of ocean is Pacific Ocean. Atlantic Ocean is average productivity ocean, and the lowest one is Indian Ocean. Compare productivity to consumption, China and Japan is close to Pacific Ocean, so this ocean productivity is high. While India is close to Indian Ocean, so this ocean productivity is low.

I will analyze the consumer graph.China and Japan are the most amount of consumption. US, Russia and India are less than that two of country. China's population is twelve times than Japan, but from the graph can see the consuption between the two nations are almost equal. On the other hand, China's population is almost the same to India, but India's consumption is three times less than China.

Two graph show that three ocean and the consumers have very related. China and Japan are the two largest consumers on Pacific Ocean. The other consumers of country almost same.

Task 2 : Write a report. To what extent do you agree with the statements. (Argumentative, 40 minutes 250 words)

Fathers and mothers make different on family. Mothers always do more things do. During being married, women are solely take responsibility for deciding whether or not to have babies and then for bringing childrens up. Whereas fathers always do nothing for these family's things. I think fatherhood ought to be emphasized as much as motherhood.

Mothers do more isn't always do better for family. If all work give mothers do while fathers only work outside, thus make children receive less father's love and care children do something allowding to mother's mind.All kind of family's affairs shouldn't depend on mother's doing. It's imbalance on some aparts do made be bad.

On the country, fathers do more isn't always do better for family. Generally speaking, fathers do more work outside and they always ignore family's affairs. Parents misunderstand responsibilities most fathers think they only support on the economic. Without this, they have many responsibilities in their family.

Combine father and mother can made family more useful and happy. Sometimes women and man always have different minds, and when they educated their child, they can discuss and choose or find out other method can do good to their children. In addition, family is belong to all, fathers and mothers should do something to their family

Everyone should has sense of responsibility, not divide into women and man, the poor and the rich. It's impossible that people do more or do less. Fathers and mothers should do together and should take responsibility for their family's affairs and therefore fathershood and motherhood are equal important.

Re: Writing conclusions | Mike McDonald | September 11th, 2002

Tony Dudley-Evans did some work on this. For a summary, see this link.

There's also some stuff in Swales and Feak, Academic Writing for Graduate Students, on p. 195ff.

HTH

Mike McDonald

Writing conclusions | Richard Colclough | September 11th, 2002

Thanks for the replies to my query- you've certainly given me some food for thought. I'll ponder what you've said for a while but here are a few initial thoughts.

Darin: I have lots of Chinese students and it was really interesting to see how similar your excerpts were to the sort of writing I frequently see. I strongly agree that, especially on short courses, it's better to focus more on achieving the task and on organisation of ideas than on accuracy- it seems a sound essay can contain inaccuracies so long as the content is relevant and logically organised but not the other way round. Also, big improvements in task achievement and coherence can often be made with limited time while accuracy seems to take longer to develop. Planning time seems to be important but I think may be neglected in exam conditions even if it's been drummed into the students.

Interestingly, don't you think the Task 1 piece achieves a slightly higher level of sophistication? Is this type of task more easily prepared for with a few lessons on things like comparison and contrast?? Having said that, Task 2 seems to close more successfully (with a recommendation) while Task 1 just seems to be left hanging in the air. What would I get the students to work on? Probably paragraph development?

Francesca: This was really interesting stuff too. Do you think it's worth giving students a sort of simple checklist like:

1. Briefly summarise.

2. Restate main focus.

3. Discuss implications.

This seems to include most of the things you mentioned but is it too simplistic/ restricting and do authentic conclusions really consistently do this?

Mike: I haven't followed up your web reference yet, but will get back to you as soon as I have. Sounds interesting too, though.

As I say, initial thoughts, but you've all been really helpful.

Thanks again.

Ted

IELTS Writing task 1 | Richard Colclough | September 12th, 2002

Another thought on Darin's student writing:

I said something about the task 1 piece having more "sophistication", whatever that is. Do you think this is due to the fact that in task 1, the graphs etc contain key vocab required for the task while task 2 has very little of this type of help?

Also, looking at the extracts again, it seems that the student needs lots of work on accuracy, though this contradicts what I said previously. Aaaargggh!! So much to think about and so few lessons. I've just taught on a six-week pre-sessional and was constantly frustrated by the fact that so much of the course was more superficial than I, and the other tutors for that matter, would have liked. How do you people cope with this?

And finally, on a different note, I know some of you have said that you have children. Well, our first baby is due on 30 th September, and while I'm incredibly happy about the whole thing, I have been wondering how the arrival of the little one will affect my studies. Any advice?

Bye,

Ted

Re: IELTS Writing task 1 | Darin Bicknell | September 12th, 2002

The task 1 does have imbedded vocab that is often recycled in the essay. Of course I suppose she paid attention in class as I did offer up alternative vocabulary.

My belief is that although there is little 'time' to cover all the salient grammar expected for reaching their goals I have come to the conclusion after some reading for the CSD and MAP that working on determiners, conjunctions, and so forth that are in the top 250 is going to help them at least clean up the 'simple' errors in their writing.

As an example of what I mean I used 3 Task 2's done by students 3 weeks ago as a basis for building awareness and to get them serious about self-correction after completing their tasks. I used their own essays as an exercise on the article "the" and how to identify incorrect uses.

Here is a small sample of the use of 'the' in their essays, I removed the ones that were available in the question, I am hoping to see some improvement in that area and others and for IELTS exam at least it would help their overall banding if they were to improve on their use of determiners and conjunctions.

I want to advise the whole world's fathers, don't ignore the possibility to look after the child and the which good look after the child and the which good for their child and man, the poor and the rich. It's impossible that people appeared in the business, and the people had acknowledge than women be sure that you are the one part of this family the child' life. Generally, as the both parent has the possibility responsibility alone, as well as the men. Fathers and mothers make they has responsibility to bring the children up and do the should take responsibility of bringing the children up as they were you have responsible for bringing the children up. To decline some take care of children, but the children also need father's love children up and do the jobs which mother can not. To decline some invitation , find the time to play with children time, father and mother has the equal position in the family as the both parent has the possibility to look after the has the equal position in the family, but people may still in the bussiness, and the people had feeling, otherwise you will lose the image that in children's heart divide into women and man, the poor and the rich. It's just arrived home at night. The whole week, I can't talk can replaced. Thirdly, couple pay the same responsibility for children as they may busy too. The cooperation of father and mother than man in bringing up, the man can give the better children up as they were the ones who borned the babies.

Darin Bicknell

Reply to Darin | Richard Colclough | September 13th, 2002

Thanks again Darin. Interesting to see the work you did on articles. I also frequently use excerpts from student writing but with one significant (and rather worrying) difference. Basically, while you seem to have clear criteria for selecting specific language points, I've always tended to throw the net much wider in a far less principled way and then ask the students to categorise problem areas before attempting to correct them. I think that perhaps the result of this is that the students aren't getting enough of a particular point to really notice it and become more aware of it. They love doing the exercises but I'm not particularly convinced that it leads to them successfully noticing similar problems for themselves or each other.

Here's an example from one worksheet that I used a while ago:

It will be discussed about organisations. I'd like to work in a plc. The partnership is similar to the sole trader. But for forming a partnership, at least two people are required. Which organisation is prefer is mentioned too. Four types of business organisation will be described in the following aspects, capital sources. The board of directors that is elected by shareholders controls the company. The firm can't sell the shares to the public. Public Limited Companies must be registered with the Registrar of Companies, have limited liability, raise capital by issuing shares and are run by a board of directors elected by the shareholders.

It will be given my own opinions. In my opinion, I prefer to work in the private limited company. Because the relations in families is friendly and will be easily controlled. Everyone will get the profit depending on how many shares he have got. The capital of the company is from shared capital. The committee that is composed of the investors controls the actions of a private company.

And as for using vocab included in an essay title, have a guess what this one was about! This is an absolute favourite of mine, and it's a great activity to try to remove all the repetition:

Obviously, as with all shopping, it is fairly certain that online shopping and traditional shopping have many similarities. Firstly, online shopping and traditional shopping are alike in that consumers need spend time and money to purchase goods and service. Secondly, in both online shopping and traditional shopping people need to collect the information of the same goods of different company. Thirdly, online shopping is similar to traditional shopping in that consumers can use the samples of goods. Finally, in both online shopping and traditional shopping, customers need the trustworthiness and credibility of the retailer.

Anyway, that's all for now. Thanks again, Darin.

Ted