Summarize this article in one sentence.
You should briefly restate the topic as well as explaining why it is important.  Do not spend a great amount of time or space restating your topic. A good research paper will make the importance of your topic apparent, so you do not need to write an elaborate defense of your topic in the conclusion. Usually a single sentence is all you need to restate your topic. An example would be if you were writing a paper on the epidemiology of an infectious disease, you might say something like "Tuberculosis is a widespread infectious disease that affects millions of people worldwide every year."   Yet another example from the humanities would be a paper about the Italian Renaissance: "The Italian Renaissance was an explosion of art and ideas centered around artists, writers, and thinkers in Florence." Aside from the topic, you should also restate or rephrase your thesis statement.  A thesis is a narrowed, focused view on the topic at hand. This statement should be rephrased from the thesis you included in your introduction. It should not be identical or too similar to the sentence you originally used. Try re-wording your thesis statement in a way that complements your summary of the topic of your paper in your first sentence of your conclusion. An example of a good thesis statement, going back to the paper on tuberculosis, would be "Tuberculosis is a widespread disease that affects millions of people worldwide every year. Due to the alarming rate of the spread of tuberculosis, particularly in poor countries, medical professionals are implementing new strategies for the diagnosis, treatment, and containment of this disease." Essentially, you need to remind your reader what you told them in the body of the paper.  A good way to go about this is to re-read the topic sentence of each major paragraph or section in the body of your paper. Find a way to briefly restate each point mentioned in each topic sentence in your conclusion. Do not repeat any of the supporting details used within your body paragraphs. Under most circumstances, you should avoid writing new information in your conclusion. This is especially true if the information is vital to the argument or research presented in your paper. For example, in the TB paper you could summarize the information. "Tuberculosis is a widespread disease that affects millions of people worldwide. Due to the alarming rate of the spread of tuberculosis, particularly in poor countries, medical professionals are implementing new strategies for the diagnosis, treatment, and containment of this disease. In developing countries, such as those in Africa and Southeast Asia, the rate of TB infections is soaring. Crowded conditions, poor sanitation, and lack of access to medical care are all compounding factors in the spread of the disease. Medical experts, such as those from the World Health Organization are now starting campaigns to go into communities in developing countries and provide diagnostic testing and treatments. However, the treatments for TB are very harsh and have many side effects. This leads to patient non-compliance and spread of multi-drug resistant strains of the disease." If your paper proceeds in an inductive manner and you have not fully explained the significance of your points yet, you need to do so in your conclusion.  Note that this is not needed for all research papers. If you already fully explained what the points in your paper mean or why they are significant, you do not need to go into them in much detail in your conclusion. Simply restating your thesis or the significance of your topic should suffice. It is always best practice to address important issues and fully explain your points in the body of your paper. The point of a conclusion to a research paper is to summarize your argument for the reader and, perhaps, to call the reader to action if needed. If and when needed, you can state to your readers that there is a need for further research on your paper's topic.  Note that a call for action is not essential to all conclusions. A research paper on literary criticism, for instance, is less likely to need a call for action than a paper on the effect that television has on toddlers and young children. A paper that is more likely to call readers to action is one that addresses a public or scientific need. Let's go back to our example of tuberculosis. This is a very serious disease that is spreading quickly and with antibiotic-resistant forms. A call to action in this research paper would be a follow-up statement that might be along the lines of "Despite new efforts to diagnose and contain the disease, more research is needed to develop new antibiotics that will treat the most resistant strains of tuberculosis and ease the side effects of current treatments.". The conclusion of a paper is your opportunity to explain the broader context of the issue you have been discussing. It is also a place to help readers understand why the topic of your paper truly matters. You should use the conclusion to answer the “so what” question because the significance of your topic may not be obvious to readers. For example, if you are writing a history paper, then you might discuss how the historical topic you discussed matters today. If you are writing about a foreign country, then you might use the conclusion to discuss how the information you shared may help readers understand their own country.
Restate the topic. Restate your thesis. Briefly summarize your main points. Add the points up. Make a call to action when appropriate. Answer the “so what” question.