Conclusions

This is an old thought, but I had a discussion with one of my advisors a while back on what a conclusion entails. While it's true that the goal of the conclusion is to summarize the findings at the end, what makes an effective conclusion from a poor one?

In particular, for something on the scale of an thesis document, where many experiments have been performed and many new findings have been made, what are the key points that the author wants to hit upon? What I learned from my advisor is summarized here.

Conclusions can be divided into three categories:

1. New knowledge
2. New wisdom
3. New technique

Developing, testing, and reporting a new technique should be straight-foward. (Most) papers will not have this conclusion depending on the nature of the work performed, as such I won't discuss it anymore. New knowledge and wisdom on the other hand, is more challenging.

First, what is the difference between the two? New knowledge refers to new information that has been obtained from the findings of the experiment. For example, one variable showing a positive correlation by modifying another variable that was previously not known, is new knowledge. This constitutes a large part of scientific conclusions.

New wisdom refers to a new understanding based on the analysis of the knowledge. Following the example above, the two variables of interest show a positive correlation that is explained by how the system is responding to the input variable to generate the output variable. New wisdom is more challenging and involves the creation of models, theory, or etc. to find that understanding. 

The two are not always distinct from one another either though. New knowledge and new wisdom can be coupled together based on how the experiment is performed. In particular, this will be the case if we have already hypothesized how two variables are related, but no experiment has been performed to confirm this relationship.

Knowing these three types of conclusions have overall allowed me to streamline my writing and presentations, and more effectively bring closure to an experimental finding (despite the fact that there is always more to be done).  

Taken from another source, but a more general sense, knowledge is awareness of the right facts while wisdom is understanding those facts and coupling it with good judgement and common sense. Or alternatively:  

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit while wisdom is knowing not to put the tomato in a fruit salad.