Gramer Girl here, I'm Mignon Fogarty and you can think of me as your friendly guide to

the English language.

Writing, history, rules, and cool stuff.

Today, I have a meeting middle about how to write a conclusion and a quick and dirty tip

about the difference between the words rebut and refute.

Start by seeing what Edwin Batistella has to say about writing conclusions.

Writing essays is complicated work, and writing the ending to an essay is often the hardest

part of that work.

Endings are tough for several reasons.

You may be tired from writing, or tired of what you've written.

You may feel that you've made your points sufficiently and that no more needs to be said,

or can possibly be said.

You may feel like just tying a bow around the essay and calling it good, but doing so

is a mistake.

The ending is your last chance to make an impression.

And even if you try to write a powerful, substantive ending, there are plenty of ways

to go wrong.

Repeating, equivocating, going off on a tangent, introducing a call to action from out of

nowhere, marveling at the mysteries of the universe, tacking on an afterthought, and so

on.

I know because I've made all these mistakes.

With so many ways to go wrong, planning the ending is too important to leave until

...