Writing a Research Paper Conclusion - Proper Techniques

How to write a conclusion for a research paper

It is no secret that many research papers get rejected by journals, and getting your writing to see the light of day is a troublesome endeavor. Research suggests that about 80% of all papers get rejected by top scientific journals, with some journals “boasting” rejection rates of up to 90-95%. 

While there are plenty of reasons why research papers get rejected, such as the study being poorly conducted, data and statistics presented being insufficient, or the research question lacking significance, as a researcher you are the person best poised to solve the issues concerning the study and the data. However, a notable chunk of papers do not get selected for publishing for simple reasons according to a study, and it would be a shame if that were the barrier to the publication of your work, so you are right in seeking advice on how to conclude a research paper the right way. 

Good writing and good structure are crucial not only for your manuscript to get approved but also for your paper to make a lasting impression on its readers. And a good conclusion can really help you drive your points home.

Purpose: why do you need a conclusion

To be able to do something well, you first need to understand why you are doing it and what the point of it is. In general, the purpose of a conclusion is to summarize the points you have made, preferably in an impactful or memorable manner to impress your main ideas on the reader and provide closure for your work so it does not end in an abrupt way. In a research paper, you can also take the opportunity to provide closing thoughts on your study and give directions for future research if you feel it is needed.

You can think of the conclusion as a bow that ties your key points together and wraps everything up in a neat and memorable way. Let’s take a look at how to write a good conclusion for a research paper.

Key elements: what makes a good conclusion

With that in mind, let’s take a look at what the conclusion of a research paper should contain:

• Research objective
• Summary of findings
• Implications
• Limitations
• Future directions

As you can see, a research paper conclusion has its nuances to master. Let us briefly cover each point in more detail.

Research objective

One of the biggest struggles is how to start a conclusion for a research paper. The best way to do this is by restating the research objective. As we said earlier, the purpose of the conclusion is to summarize and impress your main ideas on the reader. The research objective is definitely very important, and it also provides a nice and natural transition into the next section of your conclusion.

Summary of findings

This is probably the most important part of your conclusion. Here you want to summarize the results of your research and present them in a cohesive and concise way. 

It is very difficult to get this part right because it is very likely that from your perspective, every part of the incredibly hard work you have put into the research is important. However, it is best to try and take an outside viewpoint here and go for the most impactful findings of your study, and not get lost in every minute detail of your work. The details of your research can be covered in the main body of your paper, and if you start describing them in your conclusion, instead of leaving your reader with a few memorable and meaningful points, you will leave them with a blurry heap of information that will most likely be forgotten very soon.

Given that this part can be difficult, and partly so because of an emotional bias, you might want to get outside help here. Getting some advice from a colleague can be invaluable, but there is an even easier way: you can use AI to summarize your paper.

ReadPartner is a secure AI tool that is designed specifically to summarize information, and you can configure the type of summary you want to receive that is best suited to the type of paper you are working on. ReadPartner has free and paid plans, so give it a try and see if it can isolate the most impactful parts of your study. ReadPartner also has a one-click summarizer Chrome extension.

Implications

Once you have summarized your main points and ideas in the previous sections, it is time to move on to real-world applications. This part is crucial to leaving your reader with a strong idea of why your research is important.

Now, it is worth noting here that as a rule, research, especially cutting-edge research rarely has some immediate, obvious, and viable applications. Usually, it takes years to move from theory to actual real-world use, and you can never know for sure how your research will end up being used. For example, I doubt that early radio researchers like Hertz who were trying to test Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism knew that their research would end up as a kitchen appliance to heat dinner leftovers many years later.

So, if your research has some immediately viable applications – great! Describe that in the conclusion. If it doesn’t – don’t worry! What you want to do is to think of possible future applications. And don’t dwell on the fact that you can never really know. Share your ideas on the potential uses here instead!

Limitations

While it can feel awkward to talk about the limitations of your work, especially from the viewpoint of trying to “sell” it to the publishers, it is nevertheless an extremely important step. The scientific field values integrity extremely highly, and by acknowledging the limitations of the research, you enhance the credibility and transparency of your work. It is key to demonstrate that you have critically evaluated your study to build trust with readers as it helps them see that you are not overstating your findings.

Moreover, this section will help avoid misinterpretation of the results, helping readers and also the media avoid taking or applying the findings of your research out of the appropriate context. And just maybe, this will help avoid sensationalized reporting, like what happened with the 2022 article “A holographic wormhole traversed in a quantum computer”, where physicists created a computer simulation of a wormhole. Some media outlets heavily emphasized the dramatic implications of this research and downplayed the fact that it was purely a mathematical model implemented on a quantum computer, possibly leading many readers to believe that an actual wormhole was constructed in a lab. 

Future directions

Wrapping up your conclusion with directions for future research is a neat way to provide closure for your work, while leaving your readers with a sense of continuity and purpose, making your study feel like a meaningful part of an ongoing iterative research process.

In this section, you want to highlight how your research fits into the scientific field at large and encourage other researchers to continue the exploration of this topic.

Depending on the content of your study and what is needed, you can cover the following things:

• Refining methodologies
• Expanding sample sizes, or exploring this topic in a different setting
• Investigating topics related to this study that can provide further insight into the subject of your work
• Testing the findings of the research, for example in real-world scenarios

With our steps on how to conclude a research paper covered, let’s cover what not to do in your conclusion, and take a look at some examples of good conclusions so you have a better idea of what it should look like.

Tips and common mistakes

1. Adding new information

Probably one of the most common pitfalls is to try and add new information in your conclusion that was not covered in the main body of your work. You really don’t want to do that because first of all, this breaks the flow and structure of your manuscript. The conclusion is meant to summarize the information already presented. Second of all, the new information you introduce here will miss the critical discussion other arguments had in the main body of your paper, making your paper appear less scientifically rigorous.

2. Word-for-word repetition

It is probably pretty clear that word-for-word repetition is pretty bad when writing a conclusion. If you simply repeat the main points from the body of your paper exactly, it makes the conclusion completely redundant. Instead, you want to try to offer a fresh perspective on the same points you’ve made and present them in the most impactful way you can.

3. Unsupported or unrelated ideas

Running away with your ideas can feel like a great creative process, but you really want to stick to the point of what you covered in your paper. Starting to talk about unrelated things in the conclusion can really undermine the credibility of your work in an instant. Instead, try to focus on synthesizing your work here and not providing novelty, and try to stay relevant.

4. Level of detail

Getting the level of detail in your conclusion just right is very important. Both being too vague and too detailed is bad. You need to find the balance between your conclusion being specific enough to impress your main ideas on the reader. At the same time, if you get too specific, you risk missing the main purpose of the conclusion, which is to summarize the most important ideas in a concise manner. Focus on your conclusion being clear, brief, and impactful.

Research paper conclusion example and why this example is good

In our research for paper conclusion examples, we have looked at many top papers published by popular journals like Nature. And it is important to note that not all papers have an explicit conclusion section, some of them incorporate the principles covered here into their Discussion section in a more lengthy and detailed manner, so that is always an option. Here, however, we will look at an example of a popular paper that has a separate conclusion section and is representative of the general structure used for conclusions. This is the conclusion of a 2023 paper “A retrospective analysis of the incidence of severe adverse events among recipients of chiropractic spinal manipulative therapy”:

This current study, which retrospectively studied a large dataset from integrated chiropractic clinics in Hong Kong, found that severe AEs potentially occurring in relation to SMT were rare, yielding an incidence of 0.21 per 100,000 SMT sessions. No AEs were identified that were life-threatening or resulted in death. The sample size of 39 AEs across 960,140 SMT sessions in 54,846 patients was insufficient to identify independent predictors of severe AEs. Further research on this topic is needed, possibly via a practice-based research network which could increase the sample size and allow for such analysis.

As you can see, this conclusion is short and concise, highlighting the research objective, the results, the implications, the limitations, and the directions for future research. It provides the reader with closure, and impresses the main points of the research paper in just 94 words.

It is worth noting that some popular papers had much lengthier conclusions than the one shown above, as seen in this article, but we have found that this very concise style is more common, with paper authors getting into more detail, if necessary, within the Discussion section. The suggested takeaway here is that there is no single extremely strict formula on how to write a conclusion, so take the needs of your paper into account.

FAQ

How long should a conclusion be in a research paper?

Paper conclusions usually range from 100 to 250 words, we have found, with many papers leaning a bit more toward the 100-word mark. This, however, is field and style dependent, so if you feel your paper needs 200-250 words to leave a strong impression, don’t let anything discourage you from doing so.

Is there a conclusion template for a research paper?

Absolutely! You can find key elements at the beginning of the corresponding section of this article and use that as a template.

Should the thesis be restated in the conclusion of a paper?

Yes, but refrain from repeating it word-for-word, and rephrase it instead. Restating the thesis really helps impress the core message of your paper on the reader.

References

1. “Rejection blues: Why do research papers get rejected?” by Suvarna Satish Khadilkar
   ‍https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6046667/#:~:text=Most%20top%20journals%20have%20almost,how%20to%20deal%20with%20rejections

2. “Common reasons why academic papers are rejected by journal editors” by Siobahn Bowler
   ‍https://www.deakin.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/269831/reasons_papers_rejected-_24.08.pdf

3. “Microwave Electronic Devices” by T.G. Roer
   ‍https://books.google.com/books?id=deDvBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA1&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

4. “A holographic wormhole traversed in a quantum computer” by Adam R. Brown & Leonard Susskind
   ‍https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03832-z

5. Examples of sensationalized reporting
   ‍https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-create-a-wormhole-using-a-quantum-computer-20221130/
   ‍https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/479924/scientists-build-baby-wormhole-as-sci-fi-moves-closer-to-fact
   ‍https://aeon.co/videos/the-tangled-tale-of-how-physicists-built-a-groundbreaking-wormhole-in-a-lab

6. Citation from:
   Chu, E.CP., Trager, R.J., Lee, L.YK. et al. A retrospective analysis of the incidence of severe adverse events among recipients of chiropractic spinal manipulative therapy. Sci Rep 13, 1254 (2023).
   ‍https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-28520-4
   ‍https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-28520-4

7. Longer conclusion example, a paper “Direct evidence of the use of multiple drugs in Bronze Age Menorca (Western Mediterranean) from human hair analysis” by E. Guerra-Doce, C. Rihuete-Herrada, R. Micó, R. Risch, V. Lull & H. M. Niemeyer
   ‍https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-31064-2