ClearTips: Powerful paragraphs

Summing up: Restate the essence of your main message

The most common kind of closing paragraph restates the conclusions of a report. Try to restate only the essence of your main messages, using new language or a new image.

There is a curve of time that separates Heman Sweatt and Cheryl Hopwood. It has been a long while since that spring afternoon in 1950 when, as a first-year Yale law student, I heard the promise of freedom in the voice of Thurgood Marshall. Since then, I have observed commendable progress, lately some tragic retrogression, and now I see even more clearly that, in the long, bloody history of the race relations in America, there is no more time for foolishness.

This example also pulls in the title of the report ("Achieving Analytical Wisdom"), linking the last line of the closing paragraph to the very beginning of the report. Readers will feel as though they have come full circle and will have a sense of completion.

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