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Hi, everyone. I'm Jade. What we're talking about today is writing a conclusion
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for an IELTS exam or a CAE exam, so I'm going to give you two ways to write conclusions so
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that when you get to the end, you don't just sort of put a full stop that doesn't really
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say anything extra, that doesn't feel like a conclusion. Because when you write a conclusion,
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a good conclusion has a different tone, there's something that feels finished about it. And
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more generally, your conclusion should be your last chance to impress, to show that
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examiner all that English that you know and how fluent you are when you're writing in
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English, and you should leave the reader with an additional thought in the end, ideally,
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when you're writing a conclusion. So let's look at a typical IELTS kind of question.
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"Some people think that parents should teach their children to be good members of society.
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However, others believe school is the best place to learn this."
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And then the IELTS question would say: "Share your experience, and give reasons for your answers."
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So let's imagine that you've already written your essay.
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So, how do you begin your conclusion? The... The
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first way I'm going to tell you, I'm going to call it the "As I have discussed" conclusion,
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and there are three parts to writing this conclusion. And I'm giving you the structure
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so that you can see how you can put a conclusion together just by putting different pieces
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in there. And now, this is... This is great for an IELTS essay. It's not a super imaginative
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kind of conclusion that would be great at university, but for IELTS, it's...
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It's good for IELTS.
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So, here are the three parts for this conclusion:
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"As I have discussed"; then:
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"However" sentence with "I" or, you know, using your subjectivity, basically;
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and then making a moral or social observation in the first conditional.
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So let's have a look. So, "As I have discussed", what
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we're doing is we're just taking that phrase, basically, and this shows the tone... This
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establishes the tone of conclusion: "As I have discussed". You're basically saying:
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"Well, I already told you all of this, but now I'm summarizing."
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"As I have discussed, there are advantages and disadvantages to the question."
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I've shown both sides of the argument. You could just learn that, you could learn that whole phrase
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to begin a conclusion. What do you follow it with?
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You follow it with a "However" sentence.
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So, there may be advantages and disadvantages, but there's a catch.
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"However, I think parents should be responsible for teaching children to be good members of society."
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So this is you saying: "Yeah, I see both sides.
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This is good about it, that's good about the other side.
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But, you know, for me and in my opinion",
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because now we're using your subjectivity
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by saying: "I think", you can... You can finally make your position clear,
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make your position known. Maybe in the rest of the essay, this is discursive... This is a discursive essay.
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You've been showing both sides of the argument. But if you write your essay in a way where
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you don't use: "I think", "I believe" in the rest of the essay before, it can be quite
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powerful just to use "I think" once at the end in your conclusion.
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So, again: "However, I think parents should be responsible for teaching children to be
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good members of society."
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That bit's done. What do we do next?
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Well, sometimes people like to end essays by giving a grand statement about morals and the world,
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so you can also do this in your IELTS exam. And this is what I'm talking about when I say:
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"Make a moral or social observation" to do with the question, of course, not just the general one.
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So here's an example:
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"If children are taught to be good members of society,
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the world will be a better place."
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So, it's in the first conditional, because we've got "if", then
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we've got the past simple, followed by a clause with "will".
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You can use that conditional structure in your essay, in your conclusion.
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I think that's good because you're showing
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the examiner you know how to write conditionals. So, because these essays are marked on your
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style, but also your grammar when you're writing English, displaying a range of structures,
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it's good to write this moral... Moral or social observation in the conditional. So,
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that was the first way you can write a conclusion. When we come back, I'm going to show you the
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second way you can write a conclusion for IELTS or CAE.
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Let's have a look at the second way to write a conclusion for your IELTS or a similar discursive
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essay. So, in this conclusion, we have a different structure to follow.
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First of all, you can make a subjective opinion statement. What do I mean by "subjective"?
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That basically means using "I". As I mentioned, you should not really use:
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"I think", "I think", "I think"
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all the way through your essay, but it's okay to use it just in the conclusion for impact.
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Then you include the sentence or statement with:
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"The most important reason is", blah, blah, blah.
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And then, again, you make a moral or social observation. And this time, if you
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want, you can use a second conditional, and I'll show you. So, let's have a look.
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A subjective opinion statement:
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"I think parents should teach their children to be good members of society."
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So we're just taking...
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We're taking...
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You know, there are two sides to this question. There's:
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"Parents should teach their children to be good members of society",
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and there's: "School should teach children to be good members of society",
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so now you just show us what you think.
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"I think parents should teach their children to be good members of society."
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That bit's done.
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Now we need to do the statement with the most important reason. So you've already
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given your reasons for this in the main body of your essay. Now you just elaborate and
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tell us a little bit more about which reason you think is the most persuasive reason or
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the most important reason. For example:
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"The most important reason is because parents can share their life experience
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with their children."
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There, I'm implying that maybe school teachers can't do this.
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This bit's done.
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And then, again, a moral or social observation.
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We're using the second conditional this time, and we use the second conditional to talk about imagined situations,
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so that means hypothetical situations. And it's different because we are using "would",
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and we're using the bare infinitive of the verb, and in the first clause
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we're using past simple.
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So let's... Let's read that last one:
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"If schools were to teach this"
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-teach children how to be good members of society-
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"the role of the family would be destroyed."
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So that's quite moral, quite a strong opinion to leave your essay with, and it does establish that:
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"I'm finished now. My very important essay is complete."
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So, there are two ways of writing your conclusions for IELTS, CAE, or a similar discursive essay.
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There are many more imaginative ways to write essays; this is not a fixed rule.
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What can you take from this? You can take some phrases,
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you can start to think about the structure
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of your conclusion that you're writing, and hopefully when you get there in your exam,
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you won't get stuck in your conclusion, and you won't just rewrite the answer.
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You'll have something a little bit different to say, also something that displays a little bit
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of clever grammar, like a second conditional in your essay.
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So, yup, if you did like this lesson, please subscribe here on my engVid channel.
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Also you can do a quiz on this, so you can take this lesson a little bit further,
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do a little bit of extra work on it.
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Plus you can subscribe on my personal channel, because I've got two channels.
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So, yep, I really do wish you luck on those exams, but I'm going now.
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[Banging noise]
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[Laughter]
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Neigh.