How do you write good beginnings and endings for paragraphs and essays?

Answer 1

Supervisors: this is part of a learning hub on writing effective paragraphs. Please do not delete answers or alternate questions.

Whether you are writing an essay or just a few sentences, you can write effective beginnings and endings if you keep in mind these simple steps:

1. Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em - this means that when you start out, you want to make an introductory paragraph in which you give a short idea of where you are headed with this work. Your topic sentence should pretty much sum up the point of the essay and give the reader an idea of what to expect in the paragraph. In the first paragraph, you explain what you are going to be writing about.
2. Transition into your points. Pretend that you are just talking to a friend instead of writing a paper - you don't just blurt out globs of information to another person, right? You lead up to your point with transition sentences. "As you can see," "This means that," "The next step," and "Another point," are some of the many (many!) ways of transitioning into another point. It helps to jot all your points down in a list before you start writing, so you know exactly what you're going to put into the middle parts.
3. Tell 'em what you just told 'em - after you put down all your points, write a concluding paragraph or sentence in which you repeat the topic sentence in other words. You can start your concluding sentence with "in conclusion," "to sum up," "in other words," or just about any way you want! The idea of a concluding sentence or conclusion paragraph is just to rephrase the main ideas and repeat the important points that you made in your paragraph or essay. If you're doing a paragraph, your conclusion will be a sentence; if you're doing a longer work, your conclusion will be a paragraph in which you repeat the highlights that you made in the paper.
   

For a scientific paragraph or essay, the conclusion should be a list of how each fact you learned supports the main topic or thesis, and should tell whether your hypothesis was correct or incorrect.