Informational Reports for Non-Expert Readers: The Conclusion
You’ve created an introduction that you feel will entice your audience to keep reading, and you’ve produced a body that is so well organized it is astoundingly reader-friendly. Now what?
Every good thing must come to an end — and the same is true of your report. Your conclusion provides you with a final opportunity to establish your subject as worthwhile and to prove yourself a credible provider of information regarding it.
Organizing the Conclusion
Consider again the report on household robotics. How would a typical conclusion work?
Sample Conclusion: Household Robotics
Our conceptions of robots have been formed by sources as diverse as the cartoon The Jetsons and the films Star Wars and Bicentennial Man. In both cases, and in more examples like these, robots looked very similar to humans—perhaps in an effort by their designers to make them feel “safer” to us. Such robots had faces and even wore clothing.
Other robots are less human in form, but perform human actions. In factories they do everything from affix the windshields of cars to secure the bolts that hold a wing onto an airplane. In the field, they defuse bombs and perform searches in treacherous territory.
While it is likely that in the popular imagination, we will continue to imagine robots looking either like the humans who designed them or like giant machines, in truth research in modern technology focuses on designs that are more suitable for the tasks the robots must perform.
Understanding the technology involved in building a robot provides an appreciation of the device and the increasing development of robotic household appliances will soon bring robots into regular people’s homes for a reasonable price.
When you work on the conclusion of your report, remember that it must perform several functions.
Guidelines for the Conclusion of the Report
Make sure the conclusion of your report fulfills the following functions.
It Provides Closure
It wraps up the loose ends of the report and brings the document to a satisfying end. Without it, your report will simply end. By summing up your subject, you leave your readers with the knowledge that you are providing an authoritative perspective.
It Reiterates Major Points
Although doing this might sound repetitive, it actually reinforces the key points you are making in the report. Remember that your report can be to some degree persuasive. For example, by focusing on all of the opportunities open to the accounting major, an accounting report can “argue” that pursuit of such a degree is a smart move. And the report on household robotics can, by the virtue of the approach it takes to the subject, “argue” that such devices will in fact simplify rather than complicate our lives.
It Extends the Subject, If Possible
Although you’ve determined a limited focus for your report, there are other directions in which you might be able to take the subject. The conclusion can provide you with a chance to introduce those other directions and briefly discuss them, as a way of saying This subject has many dimensions, and here are some of the ones this report could not discuss.
With an enticing introduction, a logically-organized and well-detailed body, and a thought-provoking conclusion, your report can succeed in explaining a subject to your readers while engaging them in the story you are telling.