Writing a paper or setting up a piece of research often involves a problem or a puzzle. You’ve identified something that needs to be sorted and you’re just the person to do it. At the start, problems tend to present themselves as  either practical – there is something that is going on that is difficult/inequitable/could be better/could be different etc – or conceptual – we don’t really know about this, we could know more about this, we should know more about this, we could think differently about this. Let me illustrate the difference with a hypothetical example. A practical problem might be that too many doctoral researchers drop out of their programmes.  A conceptual problem might be that we don’t really understand why doctoral researchers drop out of their programmes. However, when we start to unpack the problem, we often find that the practical and the conceptual are tangled together. We justify addressing a conceptual problem by referring to the practical problem. So, in our hypothetcal, we argue that we need to know more about why doctoral researchers drop out because if we did know, we could do something about it. Well yes. Understanding the issue is pretty important in changing what is happening. But well no. It’s not that simple. Knowing more about why doctoral researchers drop out is one thing. But knowing more doesn’t necessarily mean that we have ways to address the problem – working out exactly what to do might take a further step, one where the conceptual is made practical. Now I hear you ask, why is this difference important? Well it’s important if you actually want to change what’s happening. Research results don’t necessarily translate into something practical. Knowing more is necessary but not sufficient. But understanding the connections between conceptual results and practical outcomes is also important because it informs the So What you need to write about. The So What is that part of the conclusion to the thesis or the journal article where you have to spell out what might happen as a result of your research. You described a conceptual problem at the outset, set it in its wider context, you have some kind of answer – and now you need to say what happens as a result. Back to the hypothetical. You have conducted your research on doctoral dropping out and come up with the answer that a complex mix of issues are involved. Some of them, like <life happens> are not necessarily something that anybody can do anything to stop, but they might be something that somebody could do some things to help manage. Someone, maybe you but maybe not (and if not you, who) needs to take your conceptual work and see how your results inform new/modified/improved processes. And as a help to that somebody you have managed to get a pretty decent list of the kinds of issues that doctoral researchers who  have dropped out and who are thinking about dropping out wish somebody had understood and done something about. Now to write the So What. You know that the implication from your conceptual inquiry is not that somebody simply needs to take your list, act and hey presto problems sorted. No, that somebody – whoever are they – needs to take your list and do some very systematic work on it with their particular doctoral cohort. And you do have an idea about the somebody. The somebody here is probably a Graduate School or similar but it may also be a research scholarship funder, a housing authority etc. And you may have some good ideas about what they need to do which you can also write about. In sum, the moves in your thesis or research paper in conclusion will probably go like this:

1. Your research investigated a conceptual problem – why do doctoral researchers drop out
2. You came up with a set of things including a list of <lifehappens> issues
3. This added to the literatures the following things (your contributions)
4.  And the list of <lifehappens> issues could be pretty useful to Grad Schools and funders
5. But now they need to do some work on the list.

And of course there may be more research needed too. My point here is a simple one. Thinking explicitly about the connections between the practical and the conceptual can help avoid So What statements that say well here’s this big practical problem and my research will fix it. That’s likely to be an implausible So What. But understanding the conceptual to practical avoids hubris. It also underpins a So What which not only recognises the crucial role of conceptual understandings, but also the other steps involved in addressing the problem.