Center for Analysis and Design of Intelligent Agents

Conclusions & Future Work Section

Conclusions

Purpose	Summarize what the main contribution is, with appropriate mentionings of the method, result and assumptions (and possibly motivation, if this is important)
Format	Short, concise - it is different from the Abstract in that most will have read (most of) the paper when they read this section.
What to avoid	Repeating verbatim something that was said earlier. Being too wordy. Saying something new that should have been in a prior section. Not saying anything new (wrt the context, global conclusion, etc.).

Future Work

Purpose	To help those who want to continue the work understand what you would do next
Format	A few sentences on what will be the follow-up to this study. It is customary to put mentionings of future work in the Conclusions section, not to have it be a separate section.

Example

Typical format

- Restate the problem/challenge (1-2 sentences)
- Restate what you did (1 sentence)
- Draw up the main conclusion, refer to your results
- Comment on the implications
- Tell them what would be done next

Acknowledgment

Purpose	To thank people, funding agencies, etc. that should be acknowledged but are not appropriate to list as co-authors.
Format	Comes after Results, Conclusion.