Conclusion and Evaluation:
A conclusion statement answers the following seven questions in at least three paragraphs.
I. First Paragraph: Introduction
1. What was investigated?
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- Describe the problem.
- Was the hypothesis supported by the data?
- Compare your actual result to the expected result (either from the literature, textbook, or your hypothesis).
- Include a valid conclusion that relates to the initial problem or hypothesis.
- What were your major findings?
- Did the findings support or not support the hypothesis as the solution to the restated problem?
- Calculate the percentage error from the expected value.
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II. Middle Paragraphs: These paragraphs answer question 4 and discuss the major findings of the experiment, using data.III. Last Paragraph: Conclusion
- What possible explanations can you offer for your findings?
- Evaluate your method.
- State any assumptions that were made which may affect the result.
- What recommendations do you have for further study and for improving the experiment?
- Comment on the limitations of the method chosen.
- Suggest how the method chosen could be improved to obtain more accurate and reliable results.
- What are some possible applications of the experiment?
- How can this experiment or the findings of this experiment be used in the real world for the benefit of society?
- How did your findings compare with other researchers?
- Compare your result to other students’ results in the class.
- The body paragraphs support the introductory paragraph by elaborating on the different pieces of information that were collected as data that either supported or did not support the original hypothesis.
- Each finding needs its own sentence and relates back to supporting or not supporting the hypothesis.
- The number of body paragraphs you have will depend on how many different types of data were collected. They will always refer back to the findings in the first paragraph.