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18. Bringing home the bacon

The jet plane of your essay has left the tarmac and cruised at altitude for several thousands words. Now it is time to land this baby. I don’t know if you’ve been on a plane when the passengers break out into spontaneous applause the moment the plane is safely on the runway. That always rather bothered me – are their landings that don’t earn such applause? Could the pilot be persuaded by a lack of applause to try not so much the next time he flies? I’d rather landing be a kind of take-it-for-granted expectation, wouldn’t you?

In any case, you as the pilot of your essay have a job to do to make sure everything ends well. A good strong conclusion can leave a lasting impression that you were in control of your material, that no threads were left untied, and that you had a clear mind as to the argument you were pursuing.

Most often a conclusion will be a paragraph that adds nothing new to the essay but just makes for a clean finish. This is the most basic form of conclusion. Don’t introduce a new writer to quote, or a new piece of information, or a new angle on the question. Return to the question itself, and make sure you have the terms of the question included in the way you phrase your conclusion – don’t leave anyone in anyone doubt that you have actually answered the question.

But there’s another way to go here, especially if you have a bit of space. Why not consider for a while what the implications or possible implications of your argument are? Having established your argument, now consider: what does this mean in terms of your theological thinking more generally? Theology is a discipline that hangs together. Each bit effects each other bit. If you establish something in eschatology, for example, it will have implications for your doctrine of creation. You will always have something to say at this point. If you have decided that the resurrection of Jesus was indeed bodily, and established this from a convincing theological argument, then ask: what will this mean for our doctrine of creation? What will this mean for how we think about salvation?

Often, this is the chance to bring some ethical observations to bear by asking: what does this mean for the life of church or the life of the individual believer in the world? What difference does this argument make in those contexts?

This is a chance to be bold and imaginative. You can insure yourself against the risk of being a bit speculative here by giving a slight moderation or qualification to your statements. It is perfectly acceptable to use the subjunctive here – ‘it could be said’, ‘it might be the case’, ‘possibly’, and so on. But you are showing yourself to have initiative and a bit of originality, so the risk is certainly worth it.

Do make sure with your conclusion that any promises you have made in your essay have been fulfilled. Go back over your essay and see if you can spot where you might have made a claim about what your essay will do – and then either make sure your essay has done this, or modify the claim according to what you actually have done! It might be that in your final paragraphs you have an opportunity to address those promises explicitly.

If you are short of words, your conclusion need not be long. A sentence might be enough. But an essay with no conclusion remains curiously unpersuasive. We are left asking ‘what did it all amount to?’ Make sure the reader knows exactly what it amounted to.