Conclusion

Research

The closing section that returns to the thesis, recaps findings, and explains their broader significance.

Sources

1. Merriam-Webster — conclusion merriam-webster.com accessed 23 September 2026

Merriam-Webster gives both meanings a paper needs to keep apart: “a reasoned judgment : inference”, and “the last part of something”. From Latin concludere, through Anglo-French; first recorded in the fourteenth century in the reasoning sense. That the reasoning sense came first is worth remembering when writing one — a conclusion is meant to be something inferred, not merely something positioned at the end.

Merriam-Webster is cited as the dictionary of record: where an entry defines a word rather than a position, a dictionary is the primary source for it. The research usage above is this lexicon’s own.

Related terms

• Abbreviation
• Abstract
• Abstraction
• Academic Database
• Analysis
• Annotation

From the AJG lexicon archive (July 2026).