Developing a Conclusion

We all know how important first impressions are. But did you know that last impressions are almost as important? Humans tend to remember those two moments of an encounter . . . the first and the last. . . better than any other parts. Business meetings, business phone calls, and oral presentations are no exception. So, planning the conclusion of your oral presentation is pretty important stuff. You'll want to give some extra creative thought to what you'll say in the last minute or so of your presentation so that you rise above the crowd rather than sink to the depths of mediocrity.


How do you do this? Easy!


First, think of the conclusion as a separate unit from the rest of the speech but still connected, somewhat like a separate paragraph is in an essay. The moment when you finish the body of your presentation and enter the conclusion must be obvious to the audience. You can do this in several ways. One way is to make a one sentence transition to the conclusion. Make the sentence short and a little clever, if you can.
In addition to saying a transition sentence, you should use a subtle platform movement and an appropriate hand gesture to signal to your audience that you have made a major content shift in your presentation. These things will signal to the audience that the presentation is about to conclude.

You want the conclusion to do two things:

The conclusion should bring the presentation to a psychological closing. An audience wants to feel comfortable being sure you are finished speaking so they can clap or react in some other appropriate way. They don't want to have to guess whether you are finished or not because they will be uneasy about making the wrong decision and embarrassing both you and them.



The conclusion should plant in the audience's mind the most important idea or ideas of your speech. As you will see later in this discussion, sometimes this will involve reminding the audience about what the key ideas were in your presentation. But you could also tell the audience the one key idea to which the rest of your speech has been building.


So, after you have signaled to your audience that your conclusion is underway, you should spend about one minute using one of the following strategies to bring about these two goals.


Summarize the main ideas. This is a somewhat unimaginative conclusion strategy so I mention it first. If you use it, just enumerate each of the main points you made in the body of your presentation. Usually, you might want to strive for a more imaginative ending than this but sometimes this strategy is the best. If, for example, your presentation is especially long or complicated or, say, the audience is trying to learn or memorize the main ideas of your presentation, this might be the best way to go. Creativity is less important than practicality so you should certainly use this method if the situation demands it.


Ask a question. This conclusion strategy is sometimes called the "rhetorical question" strategy because, when you use it, you ask a question you want the audience to think about but not actually answer out loud. The trick here is to actually ask a thought provoking question. Just asking any old question that relates to your speech isn't good enough. You must spend some time thinking up a good rhetorical question.


Use the envelope. Envelopes wrap around things and enfold them in a nice, neat package. The envelope strategy, then, does this to your presentation by tying the conclusion to something you set up in the introduction. Say, for example, you begin your presentation with an anecdote, which is a very useful attention getting device. If you decide to use the envelope strategy for your conclusion, leave off the story in your introduction at an exciting moment. Then, go on and give the body of your speech. When you get to the conclusion, refer back to that story you never finished in the introduction and ask the audience if they remember it. In the conclusion, finish the story, making sure that the point of your speech affected the story in some important way.


Retell the story. This strategy is actually just a different version of the envelope. In this scenario, however, you tell the entire story in the introduction. Next, give the body of the speech. But then, in the conclusion, remind the audience of the introductory story you told in the introduction and retell the ending such that things have changed dramatically because of the main idea of your speech!




Quote someone famous. Reciting a quote taken from an important person, for some reason, gives audiences the sense that the speech is over and gives them all something to think about. There are numerous quotation collections in the library research section and on line. Most often, you look up a topic and find various famous things people have said throughout history about that topic. You find something that seems to fit the content of your speech especially well and use that in your conclusion (often the last line). Be sure to give credit to the person who said those famous words.


Say something shocking. You could end with an appropriate statistic or fact which makes your audience see your point.
Draw a conclusion. Maybe your speech has been leading up to something important. It makes sense, then, that your conclusion would draw some sort of inference from your data. Give your audience something to think about!


Predict the future. You might just imagine what the future will be like in light of the information you have presented. People think of imagining the future as an activity they do when they are at the end of thinking about something. Have the audience imagine along with you.


Use your imagination. In actually, the number of concluding strategies is limited only by your own imagination. Some of the best conclusions are ones which are not slick formulas but ones which follow naturally from your own data.

In addition to the fact that there are some things you should do in your conclusion, there are also some things you should not do. Fortunately, the list is short.


Don't use dull, over used phrases like, "In conclusion. . ." or , "So, what I've been trying to say is. . "
Don't introduce a brand new idea in your conclusion. Remember, you conclusion is either a summary of what you have said or the culminating point. But it should not go off in a new direction. All that would do would be to leave your audience with an unfinished or undeveloped idea.


Hope these tips prove useful in your next presentations in class!