Ending it

I suck at writing conclusions. I've known this for a long time. My modus operandi for a long time (i.e. seminar papers) had been to just leave the last piece of my argument hanging there without even trying to tie everything together.

That was (marginally) acceptable for writing seminar papers, particularly if the last part of my argument was in any way summative of what I was writing about, but it's really coming home to me now in the dissertation that that strategy's just not going to work anymore. After all, the transitions between the chapters should at least give a nod of recognition to the overall project and how each chapter fits into that project.

I tell myself it will all work out fine in the end, as I struggle with the conclusion to this last chapter (no, it's not complete, but I just finished writing the last section, so it seemed appropriate to attempt a conclusion). After all, once all the chapters are written, I'll have to deal with the thing as a whole, and all the introductions and conclusions will (and probably should) change when they're placed up against the chapters that precede or follow them. So I'll get a chance to sort it all out at the end.

But I still really suck at conclusions. I suppose one really positive outcome of this whole dissertating process would be getting better at writing conclusions.

If I get better at it, that is.