Thesis and Dissertation Writing in a Second Language: a handbook for Supervisors

Writing Conclusions
This part of the chapter provides a framework for the typical structure of con-
cluding chapters. The language typical of concluding chapters is discussed in
this section, as is the purpose of the Conclusions section.
Features of Conclusions
The Conclusions section is where students both summarize and ‘wrap up’ their
work. Evans and Gruba (2002) list the following features of Conclusions:
150
Writing Discussions and Conclusions
Application: stance and engagement
Ask your student to look at the Discussion section of a thesis or disser-
tation written in their area of study and find examples of the kind of
stance and engagement strategies described by Hyland; that is, exam-
ples of hedges, boosters, attitude markers and self-mentions that express
stance and examples of reader pronouns, personal asides, appeals to
shared knowledge, directives and questions that express engagement.
Ask them to identify which of these strategies seem to be more
common in their area of study.