Writing Introductions and Conclusions
IntroducedShort, load-bearing, and then out of the way
- In a timed essay, every sentence spent on the introduction is a sentence not spent on evidence.
- Four of the six rubric points live in the body.
- So the introduction should do its job in two or three sentences and stop.
A timed introduction that starts with the history of everything leaves the body waiting outside.
A longer introduction generally improves a timed AP essay.
Four of the six points live in the body; sentences spent on the opening are taken from evidence.
A working introduction
- One sentence positioning the subject — enough context that the claim makes sense.
- One sentence stating a defensible thesis that responds to the prompt.
- Optionally one more, if the shape of your reasoning is genuinely load-bearing.
What to cut
- Cut the general opening — "Throughout history, humans have..." says nothing and costs a sentence.
- Cut the announcement of intent — "In this essay I will argue..." is a label, not an argument.
- Cut the definition of a word nobody disputes.
Write an opening and an ending that earn their place
Neither paragraph exists to be present — ask what a reader gains from it that they did not have.
"In this essay I will argue that..." is best described as...
It costs a sentence the body needed and takes no position of its own.
Select all the openings this lesson says to cut.
Positioning the subject is the one opening job worth a sentence.
"In this essay I will argue that..." earns nothing. It is a label announcing an argument rather than making one, and in a timed essay it costs a sentence that four of the six rubric points needed.
A strong conclusion restates the thesis in language you could not have used in the ____.
The language is earned by the argument the essay has just made.
The conclusion worth writing
- Restate the thesis in language you could not have used in the introduction, because the argument had not been made yet.
- Or say what follows from it — its significance, or the wider question it belongs to.
- Either is stronger than a summary, and neither takes more than two sentences.
Match each test to what it reveals.
Each test removes something and asks what was actually holding the essay together.
A test for both
- Delete your introduction and read from the first body paragraph. Is anything genuinely lost?
- Delete your conclusion and stop at the last body paragraph. Does it end or just stop?
- Whatever was genuinely lost is what those paragraphs should contain — and nothing else.
A conclusion that earns: "The policy is not failing to measure its success — it is succeeding at measuring the wrong thing, which is why more of it will not help." That sentence could not have opened the essay, because the argument had not yet been made.
Keep the introduction to two or three sentences: position the subject and state a defensible thesis. Cut general openings, announcements of intent and undisputed definitions. Make the conclusion restate the thesis in earned language or say what follows from it.