Page 74 - Aldi Lukman Nurhakim_How to Write Critical Esays: A Guide for Students of Literature

Planning an argument 73
productive mood. The general claim that you have been
thinking, like the claim that you will be, can be no substitute for
specific thoughts. Reminding the reader of the essay title should
be even more superfluous by the end of your answer than it was
at the beginning.
A merely summarizing conclusion is likely to be repetitive
and reductive. Like any paraphrase, it is likely to do an injustice
to the subtlety and complexity of the text which it seeks to
abridge. You will often find that what you had planned as your
penultimate paragraph should in fact be the last. If it establishes
the final point of your argument, it will probably make a
decisively detailed resolution which some more broadly-based
summing up would only dissipate.
Admittedly, the position of your closing sentences gives them
unfair advantage in any struggle to change your reader’s mind.
What has been most recently read tends to be most vividly
remembered. So an undisciplined tutor may be excessively
impressed by a final flourish or give a disproportionately low
mark to an essay which falters right at the end into
uncharacteristic clumsiness. Most tutors, on most occasions,
however, can be relied on to read well. That means reading all
of a work with equal attentiveness. Do end as clinchingly or
wittily or thought provokingly as you can. Remember, however,
that no localized spit and polish here will put a shine on an
otherwise dull essay.
If in doubt, begin your essay no earlier than the beginning of
your argument and, as soon as that argument is complete, stop
writing.