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What Is a Thesis? | Ultimate Guide & Examples

Published on September 14, 2022 by Tegan George . Revised on November 21, 2023.

A thesis is a type of research paper based on your original research. It is usually submitted as the final step of a master’s program or a capstone to a bachelor’s degree.

Writing a thesis can be a daunting experience. Other than a dissertation , it is one of the longest pieces of writing students typically complete. It relies on your ability to conduct research from start to finish: choosing a relevant topic , crafting a proposal , designing your research , collecting data , developing a robust analysis, drawing strong conclusions , and writing concisely .

Thesis template

You can also download our full thesis template in the format of your choice below. Our template includes a ready-made table of contents , as well as guidance for what each chapter should include. It’s easy to make it your own, and can help you get started.

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Table of contents

Thesis vs. thesis statement, how to structure a thesis, acknowledgements or preface, list of figures and tables, list of abbreviations, introduction, literature review, methodology, reference list, proofreading and editing, defending your thesis, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about theses.

You may have heard the word thesis as a standalone term or as a component of academic writing called a thesis statement . Keep in mind that these are two very different things.

• A thesis statement is a very common component of an essay, particularly in the humanities. It usually comprises 1 or 2 sentences in the introduction of your essay , and should clearly and concisely summarize the central points of your academic essay .
• A thesis is a long-form piece of academic writing, often taking more than a full semester to complete. It is generally a degree requirement for Master’s programs, and is also sometimes required to complete a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts colleges.
• In the US, a dissertation is generally written as a final step toward obtaining a PhD.
• In other countries (particularly the UK), a dissertation is generally written at the bachelor’s or master’s level.

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The final structure of your thesis depends on a variety of components, such as:

• Your discipline
• Your theoretical approach

Humanities theses are often structured more like a longer-form essay . Just like in an essay, you build an argument to support a central thesis.

In both hard and social sciences, theses typically include an introduction , literature review , methodology section ,  results section , discussion section , and conclusion section . These are each presented in their own dedicated section or chapter. In some cases, you might want to add an appendix .

Thesis examples

We’ve compiled a short list of thesis examples to help you get started.

• Example thesis #1:   “Abolition, Africans, and Abstraction: the Influence of the ‘Noble Savage’ on British and French Antislavery Thought, 1787-1807” by Suchait Kahlon.
• Example thesis #2: “’A Starving Man Helping Another Starving Man’: UNRRA, India, and the Genesis of Global Relief, 1943-1947″ by Julian Saint Reiman.

The very first page of your thesis contains all necessary identifying information, including:

• Your full title
• Your full name
• Your department
• Your institution and degree program
• Your submission date.

Sometimes the title page also includes your student ID, the name of your supervisor, or the university’s logo. Check out your university’s guidelines if you’re not sure.

Read more about title pages

The acknowledgements section is usually optional. Its main point is to allow you to thank everyone who helped you in your thesis journey, such as supervisors, friends, or family. You can also choose to write a preface , but it’s typically one or the other, not both.

Read more about acknowledgements Read more about prefaces

An abstract is a short summary of your thesis. Usually a maximum of 300 words long, it’s should include brief descriptions of your research objectives , methods, results, and conclusions. Though it may seem short, it introduces your work to your audience, serving as a first impression of your thesis.

Read more about abstracts

A table of contents lists all of your sections, plus their corresponding page numbers and subheadings if you have them. This helps your reader seamlessly navigate your document.

Your table of contents should include all the major parts of your thesis. In particular, don’t forget the the appendices. If you used heading styles, it’s easy to generate an automatic table Microsoft Word.

Read more about tables of contents

While not mandatory, if you used a lot of tables and/or figures, it’s nice to include a list of them to help guide your reader. It’s also easy to generate one of these in Word: just use the “Insert Caption” feature.

Read more about lists of figures and tables

If you have used a lot of industry- or field-specific abbreviations in your thesis, you should include them in an alphabetized list of abbreviations . This way, your readers can easily look up any meanings they aren’t familiar with.

Read more about lists of abbreviations

Relatedly, if you find yourself using a lot of very specialized or field-specific terms that may not be familiar to your reader, consider including a glossary . Alphabetize the terms you want to include with a brief definition.

Read more about glossaries

An introduction sets up the topic, purpose, and relevance of your thesis, as well as expectations for your reader. This should:

• Ground your research topic , sharing any background information your reader may need
• Define the scope of your work
• Introduce any existing research on your topic, situating your work within a broader problem or debate
• State your research question(s)
• Outline (briefly) how the remainder of your work will proceed

In other words, your introduction should clearly and concisely show your reader the “what, why, and how” of your research.

Read more about introductions

A literature review helps you gain a robust understanding of any extant academic work on your topic, encompassing:

• Selecting relevant sources
• Determining the credibility of your sources
• Critically evaluating each of your sources
• Drawing connections between sources, including any themes, patterns, conflicts, or gaps

A literature review is not merely a summary of existing work. Rather, your literature review should ultimately lead to a clear justification for your own research, perhaps via:

• Addressing a gap in the literature
• Building on existing knowledge to draw new conclusions
• Exploring a new theoretical or methodological approach
• Introducing a new solution to an unresolved problem
• Definitively advocating for one side of a theoretical debate

Read more about literature reviews

Theoretical framework

Your literature review can often form the basis for your theoretical framework, but these are not the same thing. A theoretical framework defines and analyzes the concepts and theories that your research hinges on.

Read more about theoretical frameworks

Your methodology chapter shows your reader how you conducted your research. It should be written clearly and methodically, easily allowing your reader to critically assess the credibility of your argument. Furthermore, your methods section should convince your reader that your method was the best way to answer your research question.

A methodology section should generally include:

• Your overall approach ( quantitative vs. qualitative )
• Your research methods (e.g., a longitudinal study )
• Your data collection methods (e.g., interviews or a controlled experiment
• Any tools or materials you used (e.g., computer software)
• The data analysis methods you chose (e.g., statistical analysis , discourse analysis )
• A strong, but not defensive justification of your methods

Read more about methodology sections

Your results section should highlight what your methodology discovered. These two sections work in tandem, but shouldn’t repeat each other. While your results section can include hypotheses or themes, don’t include any speculation or new arguments here.

Your results section should:

• State each (relevant) result with any (relevant) descriptive statistics (e.g., mean , standard deviation ) and inferential statistics (e.g., test statistics , p values )
• Explain how each result relates to the research question
• Determine whether the hypothesis was supported

Additional data (like raw numbers or interview transcripts ) can be included as an appendix . You can include tables and figures, but only if they help the reader better understand your results.

Read more about results sections

Your discussion section is where you can interpret your results in detail. Did they meet your expectations? How well do they fit within the framework that you built? You can refer back to any relevant source material to situate your results within your field, but leave most of that analysis in your literature review.

For any unexpected results, offer explanations or alternative interpretations of your data.

Read more about discussion sections

Your thesis conclusion should concisely answer your main research question. It should leave your reader with an ultra-clear understanding of your central argument, and emphasize what your research specifically has contributed to your field.

Why does your research matter? What recommendations for future research do you have? Lastly, wrap up your work with any concluding remarks.

Read more about conclusions

In order to avoid plagiarism , don’t forget to include a full reference list at the end of your thesis, citing the sources that you used. Choose one citation style and follow it consistently throughout your thesis, taking note of the formatting requirements of each style.

Which style you choose is often set by your department or your field, but common styles include MLA , Chicago , and APA.

Create APA citations Create MLA citations

In order to stay clear and concise, your thesis should include the most essential information needed to answer your research question. However, chances are you have many contributing documents, like interview transcripts or survey questions . These can be added as appendices , to save space in the main body.

Read more about appendices

Once you’re done writing, the next part of your editing process begins. Leave plenty of time for proofreading and editing prior to submission. Nothing looks worse than grammar mistakes or sloppy spelling errors!

Consider using a professional thesis editing service or grammar checker to make sure your final project is perfect.

Once you’ve submitted your final product, it’s common practice to have a thesis defense, an oral component of your finished work. This is scheduled by your advisor or committee, and usually entails a presentation and Q&A session.

After your defense , your committee will meet to determine if you deserve any departmental honors or accolades. However, keep in mind that defenses are usually just a formality. If there are any serious issues with your work, these should be resolved with your advisor way before a defense.

If you want to know more about AI for academic writing, AI tools, or research bias, make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

Research bias

• Survivorship bias
• Self-serving bias
• Availability heuristic
• Halo effect
• Hindsight bias
• Deep learning
• Generative AI
• Machine learning
• Reinforcement learning
• Supervised vs. unsupervised learning

 (AI) Tools

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• Paraphrasing Tool
• Text Summarizer
• AI Detector
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The conclusion of your thesis or dissertation shouldn’t take up more than 5–7% of your overall word count.

If you only used a few abbreviations in your thesis or dissertation , you don’t necessarily need to include a list of abbreviations .

If your abbreviations are numerous, or if you think they won’t be known to your audience, it’s never a bad idea to add one. They can also improve readability, minimizing confusion about abbreviations unfamiliar to your reader.

When you mention different chapters within your text, it’s considered best to use Roman numerals for most citation styles. However, the most important thing here is to remain consistent whenever using numbers in your dissertation .

A thesis or dissertation outline is one of the most critical first steps in your writing process. It helps you to lay out and organize your ideas and can provide you with a roadmap for deciding what kind of research you’d like to undertake.

Generally, an outline contains information on the different sections included in your thesis or dissertation , such as:

• Your anticipated title
• Your abstract
• Your chapters (sometimes subdivided into further topics like literature review , research methods , avenues for future research, etc.)

A thesis is typically written by students finishing up a bachelor’s or Master’s degree. Some educational institutions, particularly in the liberal arts, have mandatory theses, but they are often not mandatory to graduate from bachelor’s degrees. It is more common for a thesis to be a graduation requirement from a Master’s degree.

Even if not mandatory, you may want to consider writing a thesis if you:

• Plan to attend graduate school soon
• Have a particular topic you’d like to study more in-depth
• Are considering a career in research
• Would like a capstone experience to tie up your academic experience

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What is a thesis | A Complete Guide with Examples

Table of Contents

A thesis is a comprehensive academic paper based on your original research that presents new findings, arguments, and ideas of your study. It’s typically submitted at the end of your master’s degree or as a capstone of your bachelor’s degree.

However, writing a thesis can be laborious, especially for beginners. From the initial challenge of pinpointing a compelling research topic to organizing and presenting findings, the process is filled with potential pitfalls.

Therefore, to help you, this guide talks about what is a thesis. Additionally, it offers revelations and methodologies to transform it from an overwhelming task to a manageable and rewarding academic milestone.

What is a thesis?

A thesis is an in-depth research study that identifies a particular topic of inquiry and presents a clear argument or perspective about that topic using evidence and logic.

Writing a thesis showcases your ability of critical thinking, gathering evidence, and making a compelling argument. Integral to these competencies is thorough research, which not only fortifies your propositions but also confers credibility to your entire study.

Furthermore, there's another phenomenon you might often confuse with the thesis: the ' working thesis .' However, they aren't similar and shouldn't be used interchangeably.

A working thesis, often referred to as a preliminary or tentative thesis, is an initial version of your thesis statement. It serves as a draft or a starting point that guides your research in its early stages.

As you research more and gather more evidence, your initial thesis (aka working thesis) might change. It's like a starting point that can be adjusted as you learn more. It's normal for your main topic to change a few times before you finalize it.

While a thesis identifies and provides an overarching argument, the key to clearly communicating the central point of that argument lies in writing a strong thesis statement.

What is a thesis statement?

A strong thesis statement (aka thesis sentence) is a concise summary of the main argument or claim of the paper. It serves as a critical anchor in any academic work, succinctly encapsulating the primary argument or main idea of the entire paper.

Typically found within the introductory section, a strong thesis statement acts as a roadmap of your thesis, directing readers through your arguments and findings. By delineating the core focus of your investigation, it offers readers an immediate understanding of the context and the gravity of your study.

Furthermore, an effectively crafted thesis statement can set forth the boundaries of your research, helping readers anticipate the specific areas of inquiry you are addressing.

Different types of thesis statements

A good thesis statement is clear, specific, and arguable. Therefore, it is necessary for you to choose the right type of thesis statement for your academic papers.

Thesis statements can be classified based on their purpose and structure. Here are the primary types of thesis statements:

Argumentative (or Persuasive) thesis statement

Purpose : To convince the reader of a particular stance or point of view by presenting evidence and formulating a compelling argument.

Example : Reducing plastic use in daily life is essential for environmental health.

Analytical thesis statement

Purpose : To break down an idea or issue into its components and evaluate it.

Example : By examining the long-term effects, social implications, and economic impact of climate change, it becomes evident that immediate global action is necessary.

Expository (or Descriptive) thesis statement

Purpose : To explain a topic or subject to the reader.

Example : The Great Depression, spanning the 1930s, was a severe worldwide economic downturn triggered by a stock market crash, bank failures, and reduced consumer spending.

Cause and effect thesis statement

Purpose : To demonstrate a cause and its resulting effect.

Example : Overuse of smartphones can lead to impaired sleep patterns, reduced face-to-face social interactions, and increased levels of anxiety.

Compare and contrast thesis statement

Purpose : To highlight similarities and differences between two subjects.

Example : "While both novels '1984' and 'Brave New World' delve into dystopian futures, they differ in their portrayal of individual freedom, societal control, and the role of technology."

When you write a thesis statement , it's important to ensure clarity and precision, so the reader immediately understands the central focus of your work.

What is the difference between a thesis and a thesis statement?

While both terms are frequently used interchangeably, they have distinct meanings.

A thesis refers to the entire research document, encompassing all its chapters and sections. In contrast, a thesis statement is a brief assertion that encapsulates the central argument of the research.

Here’s an in-depth differentiation table of a thesis and a thesis statement.

Now, to craft a compelling thesis, it's crucial to adhere to a specific structure. Let’s break down these essential components that make up a thesis structure

15 components of a thesis structure

Navigating a thesis can be daunting. However, understanding its structure can make the process more manageable.

Here are the key components or different sections of a thesis structure:

Your thesis begins with the title page. It's not just a formality but the gateway to your research.

Here, you'll prominently display the necessary information about you (the author) and your institutional details.

• Title of your thesis
• Your full name
• Your department
• Your institution and degree program
• Your submission date
• Your Supervisor's name (in some cases)
• Your Department or faculty (in some cases)
• Your University's logo (in some cases)
• Your Student ID (in some cases)

In a concise manner, you'll have to summarize the critical aspects of your research in typically no more than 200-300 words.

This includes the problem statement, methodology, key findings, and conclusions. For many, the abstract will determine if they delve deeper into your work, so ensure it's clear and compelling.

Acknowledgments

Research is rarely a solitary endeavor. In the acknowledgments section, you have the chance to express gratitude to those who've supported your journey.

This might include advisors, peers, institutions, or even personal sources of inspiration and support. It's a personal touch, reflecting the humanity behind the academic rigor.

Table of contents

A roadmap for your readers, the table of contents lists the chapters, sections, and subsections of your thesis.

By providing page numbers, you allow readers to navigate your work easily, jumping to sections that pique their interest.

List of figures and tables

Research often involves data, and presenting this data visually can enhance understanding. This section provides an organized listing of all figures and tables in your thesis.

It's a visual index, ensuring that readers can quickly locate and reference your graphical data.

Introduction

Here's where you introduce your research topic, articulate the research question or objective, and outline the significance of your study.

• Present the research topic : Clearly articulate the central theme or subject of your research.
• Background information : Ground your research topic, providing any necessary context or background information your readers might need to understand the significance of your study.
• Define the scope : Clearly delineate the boundaries of your research, indicating what will and won't be covered.
• Literature review : Introduce any relevant existing research on your topic, situating your work within the broader academic conversation and highlighting where your research fits in.
• State the research Question(s) or objective(s) : Clearly articulate the primary questions or objectives your research aims to address.
• Outline the study's structure : Give a brief overview of how the subsequent sections of your work will unfold, guiding your readers through the journey ahead.

The introduction should captivate your readers, making them eager to delve deeper into your research journey.

Literature review section

Your study correlates with existing research. Therefore, in the literature review section, you'll engage in a dialogue with existing knowledge, highlighting relevant studies, theories, and findings.

It's here that you identify gaps in the current knowledge, positioning your research as a bridge to new insights.

To streamline this process, consider leveraging AI tools. For example, the SciSpace literature review tool enables you to efficiently explore and delve into research papers, simplifying your literature review journey.

Methodology

In the research methodology section, you’ll detail the tools, techniques, and processes you employed to gather and analyze data. This section will inform the readers about how you approached your research questions and ensures the reproducibility of your study.

Here's a breakdown of what it should encompass:

• Research Design : Describe the overall structure and approach of your research. Are you conducting a qualitative study with in-depth interviews? Or is it a quantitative study using statistical analysis? Perhaps it's a mixed-methods approach?
• Data Collection : Detail the methods you used to gather data. This could include surveys, experiments, observations, interviews, archival research, etc. Mention where you sourced your data, the duration of data collection, and any tools or instruments used.
• Sampling : If applicable, explain how you selected participants or data sources for your study. Discuss the size of your sample and the rationale behind choosing it.
• Data Analysis : Describe the techniques and tools you used to process and analyze the data. This could range from statistical tests in quantitative research to thematic analysis in qualitative research.
• Validity and Reliability : Address the steps you took to ensure the validity and reliability of your findings to ensure that your results are both accurate and consistent.
• Ethical Considerations : Highlight any ethical issues related to your research and the measures you took to address them, including — informed consent, confidentiality, and data storage and protection measures.

Moreover, different research questions necessitate different types of methodologies. For instance:

• Experimental methodology : Often used in sciences, this involves a controlled experiment to discern causality.
• Qualitative methodology : Employed when exploring patterns or phenomena without numerical data. Methods can include interviews, focus groups, or content analysis.
• Quantitative methodology : Concerned with measurable data and often involves statistical analysis. Surveys and structured observations are common tools here.
• Mixed methods : As the name implies, this combines both qualitative and quantitative methodologies.

The Methodology section isn’t just about detailing the methods but also justifying why they were chosen. The appropriateness of the methods in addressing your research question can significantly impact the credibility of your findings.

Results (or Findings)

This section presents the outcomes of your research. It's crucial to note that the nature of your results may vary; they could be quantitative, qualitative, or a mix of both.

Quantitative results often present statistical data, showcasing measurable outcomes, and they benefit from tables, graphs, and figures to depict these data points.

Qualitative results , on the other hand, might delve into patterns, themes, or narratives derived from non-numerical data, such as interviews or observations.

Regardless of the nature of your results, clarity is essential. This section is purely about presenting the data without offering interpretations — that comes later in the discussion.

In the discussion section, the raw data transforms into valuable insights.

Start by revisiting your research question and contrast it with the findings. How do your results expand, constrict, or challenge current academic conversations?

Dive into the intricacies of the data, guiding the reader through its implications. Detail potential limitations transparently, signaling your awareness of the research's boundaries. This is where your academic voice should be resonant and confident.

Practical implications (Recommendation) section

Based on the insights derived from your research, this section provides actionable suggestions or proposed solutions.

Whether aimed at industry professionals or the general public, recommendations translate your academic findings into potential real-world actions. They help readers understand the practical implications of your work and how it can be applied to effect change or improvement in a given field.

When crafting recommendations, it's essential to ensure they're feasible and rooted in the evidence provided by your research. They shouldn't merely be aspirational but should offer a clear path forward, grounded in your findings.

The conclusion provides closure to your research narrative.

It's not merely a recap but a synthesis of your main findings and their broader implications. Reconnect with the research questions or hypotheses posited at the beginning, offering clear answers based on your findings.

Reflect on the broader contributions of your study, considering its impact on the academic community and potential real-world applications.

Lastly, the conclusion should leave your readers with a clear understanding of the value and impact of your study.

References (or Bibliography)

Every theory you've expounded upon, every data point you've cited, and every methodological precedent you've followed finds its acknowledgment here.

In references, it's crucial to ensure meticulous consistency in formatting, mirroring the specific guidelines of the chosen citation style .

Proper referencing helps to avoid plagiarism , gives credit to original ideas, and allows readers to explore topics of interest. Moreover, it situates your work within the continuum of academic knowledge.

To properly cite the sources used in the study, you can rely on online citation generator tools  to generate accurate citations!

Here’s more on how you can cite your sources.

Often, the depth of research produces a wealth of material that, while crucial, can make the core content of the thesis cumbersome. The appendix is where you mention extra information that supports your research but isn't central to the main text.

Whether it's raw datasets, detailed procedural methodologies, extended case studies, or any other ancillary material, the appendices ensure that these elements are archived for reference without breaking the main narrative's flow.

For thorough researchers and readers keen on meticulous details, the appendices provide a treasure trove of insights.

Glossary (optional)

In academics, specialized terminologies, and jargon are inevitable. However, not every reader is versed in every term.

The glossary, while optional, is a critical tool for accessibility. It's a bridge ensuring that even readers from outside the discipline can access, understand, and appreciate your work.

By defining complex terms and providing context, you're inviting a wider audience to engage with your research, enhancing its reach and impact.

Remember, while these components provide a structured framework, the essence of your thesis lies in the originality of your ideas, the rigor of your research, and the clarity of your presentation.

As you craft each section, keep your readers in mind, ensuring that your passion and dedication shine through every page.

Thesis examples

To further elucidate the concept of a thesis, here are illustrative examples from various fields:

Example 1 (History): Abolition, Africans, and Abstraction: the Influence of the ‘Noble Savage’ on British and French Antislavery Thought, 1787-1807 by Suchait Kahlon.

Example 2 (Climate Dynamics): Influence of external forcings on abrupt millennial-scale climate changes: a statistical modelling study by Takahito Mitsui · Michel Crucifix

Checklist for your thesis evaluation

Evaluating your thesis ensures that your research meets the standards of academia. Here's an elaborate checklist to guide you through this critical process.

Content and structure

• Is the thesis statement clear, concise, and debatable?
• Does the introduction provide sufficient background and context?
• Is the literature review comprehensive, relevant, and well-organized?
• Does the methodology section clearly describe and justify the research methods?
• Are the results/findings presented clearly and logically?
• Does the discussion interpret the results in light of the research question and existing literature?
• Is the conclusion summarizing the research and suggesting future directions or implications?

Clarity and coherence

• Is the writing clear and free of jargon?
• Are ideas and sections logically connected and flowing?
• Is there a clear narrative or argument throughout the thesis?

Research quality

• Is the research question significant and relevant?
• Are the research methods appropriate for the question?
• Is the sample size (if applicable) adequate?
• Are the data analysis techniques appropriate and correctly applied?
• Are potential biases or limitations addressed?

Originality and significance

• Does the thesis contribute new knowledge or insights to the field?
• Is the research grounded in existing literature while offering fresh perspectives?

Formatting and presentation

• Is the thesis formatted according to institutional guidelines?
• Are figures, tables, and charts clear, labeled, and referenced in the text?
• Is the bibliography or reference list complete and consistently formatted?
• Are appendices relevant and appropriately referenced in the main text?

Grammar and language

• Is the thesis free of grammatical and spelling errors?
• Is the language professional, consistent, and appropriate for an academic audience?
• Are quotations and paraphrased material correctly cited?

Feedback and revision

• Have you sought feedback from peers, advisors, or experts in the field?
• Have you addressed the feedback and made the necessary revisions?

Overall assessment

• Does the thesis as a whole feel cohesive and comprehensive?
• Would the thesis be understandable and valuable to someone in your field?

Ensure to use this checklist to leave no ground for doubt or missed information in your thesis.

After writing your thesis, the next step is to discuss and defend your findings verbally in front of a knowledgeable panel. You’ve to be well prepared as your professors may grade your presentation abilities.

Preparing your thesis defense

A thesis defense, also known as "defending the thesis," is the culmination of a scholar's research journey. It's the final frontier, where you’ll present their findings and face scrutiny from a panel of experts.

Typically, the defense involves a public presentation where you’ll have to outline your study, followed by a question-and-answer session with a committee of experts. This committee assesses the validity, originality, and significance of the research.

The defense serves as a rite of passage for scholars. It's an opportunity to showcase expertise, address criticisms, and refine arguments. A successful defense not only validates the research but also establishes your authority as a researcher in your field.

Here’s how you can effectively prepare for your thesis defense .

Now, having touched upon the process of defending a thesis, it's worth noting that scholarly work can take various forms, depending on academic and regional practices.

One such form, often paralleled with the thesis, is the 'dissertation.' But what differentiates the two?

Dissertation vs. Thesis

Often used interchangeably in casual discourse, they refer to distinct research projects undertaken at different levels of higher education.

To the uninitiated, understanding their meaning might be elusive. So, let's demystify these terms and delve into their core differences.

Here's a table differentiating between the two.

Wrapping up

From understanding the foundational concept of a thesis to navigating its various components, differentiating it from a dissertation, and recognizing the importance of proper citation — this guide covers it all.

As scholars and readers, understanding these nuances not only aids in academic pursuits but also fosters a deeper appreciation for the relentless quest for knowledge that drives academia.

It’s important to remember that every thesis is a testament to curiosity, dedication, and the indomitable spirit of discovery.

Good luck with your thesis writing!

Frequently Asked Questions

A thesis typically ranges between 40-80 pages, but its length can vary based on the research topic, institution guidelines, and level of study.

A PhD thesis usually spans 200-300 pages, though this can vary based on the discipline, complexity of the research, and institutional requirements.

To identify a thesis topic, consider current trends in your field, gaps in existing literature, personal interests, and discussions with advisors or mentors. Additionally, reviewing related journals and conference proceedings can provide insights into potential areas of exploration.

The conceptual framework is often situated in the literature review or theoretical framework section of a thesis. It helps set the stage by providing the context, defining key concepts, and explaining the relationships between variables.

A thesis statement should be concise, clear, and specific. It should state the main argument or point of your research. Start by pinpointing the central question or issue your research addresses, then condense that into a single statement, ensuring it reflects the essence of your paper.

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How to write a thesis statement + examples

What is a thesis statement?

Is a thesis statement a question, how do you write a good thesis statement, how do i know if my thesis statement is good, examples of thesis statements, helpful resources on how to write a thesis statement, frequently asked questions about writing a thesis statement, related articles.

A thesis statement is the main argument of your paper or thesis.

The thesis statement is one of the most important elements of any piece of academic writing . It is a brief statement of your paper’s main argument. Essentially, you are stating what you will be writing about.

You can see your thesis statement as an answer to a question. While it also contains the question, it should really give an answer to the question with new information and not just restate or reiterate it.

Your thesis statement is part of your introduction. Learn more about how to write a good thesis introduction in our introduction guide .

A thesis statement is not a question. A statement must be arguable and provable through evidence and analysis. While your thesis might stem from a research question, it should be in the form of a statement.

Tip: A thesis statement is typically 1-2 sentences. For a longer project like a thesis, the statement may be several sentences or a paragraph.

A good thesis statement needs to do the following:

• Condense the main idea of your thesis into one or two sentences.
• Answer your project’s main research question.
• Clearly state your position in relation to the topic .
• Make an argument that requires support or evidence.

Once you have written down a thesis statement, check if it fulfills the following criteria:

• Your statement needs to be provable by evidence. As an argument, a thesis statement needs to be debatable.
• Your statement needs to be precise. Do not give away too much information in the thesis statement and do not load it with unnecessary information.
• Your statement cannot say that one solution is simply right or simply wrong as a matter of fact. You should draw upon verified facts to persuade the reader of your solution, but you cannot just declare something as right or wrong.

As previously mentioned, your thesis statement should answer a question.

If the question is:

What do you think the City of New York should do to reduce traffic congestion?

A good thesis statement restates the question and answers it:

In this paper, I will argue that the City of New York should focus on providing exclusive lanes for public transport and adaptive traffic signals to reduce traffic congestion by the year 2035.

Here is another example. If the question is:

How can we end poverty?

A good thesis statement should give more than one solution to the problem in question:

In this paper, I will argue that introducing universal basic income can help reduce poverty and positively impact the way we work.

• The Writing Center of the University of North Carolina has a list of questions to ask to see if your thesis is strong .

A thesis statement is part of the introduction of your paper. It is usually found in the first or second paragraph to let the reader know your research purpose from the beginning.

In general, a thesis statement should have one or two sentences. But the length really depends on the overall length of your project. Take a look at our guide about the length of thesis statements for more insight on this topic.

Here is a list of Thesis Statement Examples that will help you understand better how to write them.

Every good essay should include a thesis statement as part of its introduction, no matter the academic level. Of course, if you are a high school student you are not expected to have the same type of thesis as a PhD student.

Here is a great YouTube tutorial showing How To Write An Essay: Thesis Statements .

Think of yourself as a member of a jury, listening to a lawyer who is presenting an opening argument. You'll want to know very soon whether the lawyer believes the accused to be guilty or not guilty, and how the lawyer plans to convince you. Readers of academic essays are like jury members: before they have read too far, they want to know what the essay argues as well as how the writer plans to make the argument. After reading your thesis statement, the reader should think, "This essay is going to try to convince me of something. I'm not convinced yet, but I'm interested to see how I might be."

An effective thesis cannot be answered with a simple "yes" or "no." A thesis is not a topic; nor is it a fact; nor is it an opinion. "Reasons for the fall of communism" is a topic. "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe" is a fact known by educated people. "The fall of communism is the best thing that ever happened in Europe" is an opinion. (Superlatives like "the best" almost always lead to trouble. It's impossible to weigh every "thing" that ever happened in Europe. And what about the fall of Hitler? Couldn't that be "the best thing"?)

A good thesis has two parts. It should tell what you plan to argue, and it should "telegraph" how you plan to argue—that is, what particular support for your claim is going where in your essay.

Steps in Constructing a Thesis

First, analyze your primary sources.  Look for tension, interest, ambiguity, controversy, and/or complication. Does the author contradict himself or herself? Is a point made and later reversed? What are the deeper implications of the author's argument? Figuring out the why to one or more of these questions, or to related questions, will put you on the path to developing a working thesis. (Without the why, you probably have only come up with an observation—that there are, for instance, many different metaphors in such-and-such a poem—which is not a thesis.)

Once you have a working thesis, write it down.  There is nothing as frustrating as hitting on a great idea for a thesis, then forgetting it when you lose concentration. And by writing down your thesis you will be forced to think of it clearly, logically, and concisely. You probably will not be able to write out a final-draft version of your thesis the first time you try, but you'll get yourself on the right track by writing down what you have.

Keep your thesis prominent in your introduction.  A good, standard place for your thesis statement is at the end of an introductory paragraph, especially in shorter (5-15 page) essays. Readers are used to finding theses there, so they automatically pay more attention when they read the last sentence of your introduction. Although this is not required in all academic essays, it is a good rule of thumb.

Anticipate the counterarguments.  Once you have a working thesis, you should think about what might be said against it. This will help you to refine your thesis, and it will also make you think of the arguments that you'll need to refute later on in your essay. (Every argument has a counterargument. If yours doesn't, then it's not an argument—it may be a fact, or an opinion, but it is not an argument.)

This statement is on its way to being a thesis. However, it is too easy to imagine possible counterarguments. For example, a political observer might believe that Dukakis lost because he suffered from a "soft-on-crime" image. If you complicate your thesis by anticipating the counterargument, you'll strengthen your argument, as shown in the sentence below.

Some Caveats and Some Examples

A thesis is never a question.  Readers of academic essays expect to have questions discussed, explored, or even answered. A question ("Why did communism collapse in Eastern Europe?") is not an argument, and without an argument, a thesis is dead in the water.

A thesis is never a list.  "For political, economic, social and cultural reasons, communism collapsed in Eastern Europe" does a good job of "telegraphing" the reader what to expect in the essay—a section about political reasons, a section about economic reasons, a section about social reasons, and a section about cultural reasons. However, political, economic, social and cultural reasons are pretty much the only possible reasons why communism could collapse. This sentence lacks tension and doesn't advance an argument. Everyone knows that politics, economics, and culture are important.

A thesis should never be vague, combative or confrontational.  An ineffective thesis would be, "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because communism is evil." This is hard to argue (evil from whose perspective? what does evil mean?) and it is likely to mark you as moralistic and judgmental rather than rational and thorough. It also may spark a defensive reaction from readers sympathetic to communism. If readers strongly disagree with you right off the bat, they may stop reading.

An effective thesis has a definable, arguable claim.  "While cultural forces contributed to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the disintegration of economies played the key role in driving its decline" is an effective thesis sentence that "telegraphs," so that the reader expects the essay to have a section about cultural forces and another about the disintegration of economies. This thesis makes a definite, arguable claim: that the disintegration of economies played a more important role than cultural forces in defeating communism in Eastern Europe. The reader would react to this statement by thinking, "Perhaps what the author says is true, but I am not convinced. I want to read further to see how the author argues this claim."

A thesis should be as clear and specific as possible.  Avoid overused, general terms and abstractions. For example, "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because of the ruling elite's inability to address the economic concerns of the people" is more powerful than "Communism collapsed due to societal discontent."

Copyright 1999, Maxine Rodburg and The Tutors of the Writing Center at Harvard University

Thesis Statements

What this handout is about.

This handout describes what a thesis statement is, how thesis statements work in your writing, and how you can craft or refine one for your draft.

Introduction

Writing in college often takes the form of persuasion—convincing others that you have an interesting, logical point of view on the subject you are studying. Persuasion is a skill you practice regularly in your daily life. You persuade your roommate to clean up, your parents to let you borrow the car, your friend to vote for your favorite candidate or policy. In college, course assignments often ask you to make a persuasive case in writing. You are asked to convince your reader of your point of view. This form of persuasion, often called academic argument, follows a predictable pattern in writing. After a brief introduction of your topic, you state your point of view on the topic directly and often in one sentence. This sentence is the thesis statement, and it serves as a summary of the argument you’ll make in the rest of your paper.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement:

• tells the reader how you will interpret the significance of the subject matter under discussion.
• is a road map for the paper; in other words, it tells the reader what to expect from the rest of the paper.
• directly answers the question asked of you. A thesis is an interpretation of a question or subject, not the subject itself. The subject, or topic, of an essay might be World War II or Moby Dick; a thesis must then offer a way to understand the war or the novel.
• makes a claim that others might dispute.
• is usually a single sentence near the beginning of your paper (most often, at the end of the first paragraph) that presents your argument to the reader. The rest of the paper, the body of the essay, gathers and organizes evidence that will persuade the reader of the logic of your interpretation.

If your assignment asks you to take a position or develop a claim about a subject, you may need to convey that position or claim in a thesis statement near the beginning of your draft. The assignment may not explicitly state that you need a thesis statement because your instructor may assume you will include one. When in doubt, ask your instructor if the assignment requires a thesis statement. When an assignment asks you to analyze, to interpret, to compare and contrast, to demonstrate cause and effect, or to take a stand on an issue, it is likely that you are being asked to develop a thesis and to support it persuasively. (Check out our handout on understanding assignments for more information.)

How do I create a thesis?

A thesis is the result of a lengthy thinking process. Formulating a thesis is not the first thing you do after reading an essay assignment. Before you develop an argument on any topic, you have to collect and organize evidence, look for possible relationships between known facts (such as surprising contrasts or similarities), and think about the significance of these relationships. Once you do this thinking, you will probably have a “working thesis” that presents a basic or main idea and an argument that you think you can support with evidence. Both the argument and your thesis are likely to need adjustment along the way.

Writers use all kinds of techniques to stimulate their thinking and to help them clarify relationships or comprehend the broader significance of a topic and arrive at a thesis statement. For more ideas on how to get started, see our handout on brainstorming .

How do I know if my thesis is strong?

If there’s time, run it by your instructor or make an appointment at the Writing Center to get some feedback. Even if you do not have time to get advice elsewhere, you can do some thesis evaluation of your own. When reviewing your first draft and its working thesis, ask yourself the following :

• Do I answer the question? Re-reading the question prompt after constructing a working thesis can help you fix an argument that misses the focus of the question. If the prompt isn’t phrased as a question, try to rephrase it. For example, “Discuss the effect of X on Y” can be rephrased as “What is the effect of X on Y?”
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? If your thesis simply states facts that no one would, or even could, disagree with, it’s possible that you are simply providing a summary, rather than making an argument.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? Thesis statements that are too vague often do not have a strong argument. If your thesis contains words like “good” or “successful,” see if you could be more specific: why is something “good”; what specifically makes something “successful”?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? If a reader’s first response is likely to  be “So what?” then you need to clarify, to forge a relationship, or to connect to a larger issue.
• Does my essay support my thesis specifically and without wandering? If your thesis and the body of your essay do not seem to go together, one of them has to change. It’s okay to change your working thesis to reflect things you have figured out in the course of writing your paper. Remember, always reassess and revise your writing as necessary.
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? If a reader’s first response is “how?” or “why?” your thesis may be too open-ended and lack guidance for the reader. See what you can add to give the reader a better take on your position right from the beginning.

Suppose you are taking a course on contemporary communication, and the instructor hands out the following essay assignment: “Discuss the impact of social media on public awareness.” Looking back at your notes, you might start with this working thesis:

Social media impacts public awareness in both positive and negative ways.

You can use the questions above to help you revise this general statement into a stronger thesis.

• Do I answer the question? You can analyze this if you rephrase “discuss the impact” as “what is the impact?” This way, you can see that you’ve answered the question only very generally with the vague “positive and negative ways.”
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not likely. Only people who maintain that social media has a solely positive or solely negative impact could disagree.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? No. What are the positive effects? What are the negative effects?
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? No. Why are they positive? How are they positive? What are their causes? Why are they negative? How are they negative? What are their causes?
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? No. Why should anyone care about the positive and/or negative impact of social media?

After thinking about your answers to these questions, you decide to focus on the one impact you feel strongly about and have strong evidence for:

Because not every voice on social media is reliable, people have become much more critical consumers of information, and thus, more informed voters.

This version is a much stronger thesis! It answers the question, takes a specific position that others can challenge, and it gives a sense of why it matters.

Let’s try another. Suppose your literature professor hands out the following assignment in a class on the American novel: Write an analysis of some aspect of Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn. “This will be easy,” you think. “I loved Huckleberry Finn!” You grab a pad of paper and write:

Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is a great American novel.

You begin to analyze your thesis:

• Do I answer the question? No. The prompt asks you to analyze some aspect of the novel. Your working thesis is a statement of general appreciation for the entire novel.

Think about aspects of the novel that are important to its structure or meaning—for example, the role of storytelling, the contrasting scenes between the shore and the river, or the relationships between adults and children. Now you write:

In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops a contrast between life on the river and life on the shore.

• Do I answer the question? Yes!
• Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose? Not really. This contrast is well-known and accepted.
• Is my thesis statement specific enough? It’s getting there–you have highlighted an important aspect of the novel for investigation. However, it’s still not clear what your analysis will reveal.
• Does my thesis pass the “how and why?” test? Not yet. Compare scenes from the book and see what you discover. Free write, make lists, jot down Huck’s actions and reactions and anything else that seems interesting.
• Does my thesis pass the “So what?” test? What’s the point of this contrast? What does it signify?”

After examining the evidence and considering your own insights, you write:

Through its contrasting river and shore scenes, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave “civilized” society and go back to nature.

This final thesis statement presents an interpretation of a literary work based on an analysis of its content. Of course, for the essay itself to be successful, you must now present evidence from the novel that will convince the reader of your interpretation.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Anson, Chris M., and Robert A. Schwegler. 2010. The Longman Handbook for Writers and Readers , 6th ed. New York: Longman.

Lunsford, Andrea A. 2015. The St. Martin’s Handbook , 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s.

Ramage, John D., John C. Bean, and June Johnson. 2018. The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing , 8th ed. New York: Pearson.

Ruszkiewicz, John J., Christy Friend, Daniel Seward, and Maxine Hairston. 2010. The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers , 9th ed. Boston: Pearson Education.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Developing a Thesis Statement

Many papers you write require developing a thesis statement. In this section you’ll learn what a thesis statement is and how to write one.

Keep in mind that not all papers require thesis statements . If in doubt, please consult your instructor for assistance.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement . . .

• Makes an argumentative assertion about a topic; it states the conclusions that you have reached about your topic.
• Makes a promise to the reader about the scope, purpose, and direction of your paper.
• Is focused and specific enough to be “proven” within the boundaries of your paper.
• Is generally located near the end of the introduction ; sometimes, in a long paper, the thesis will be expressed in several sentences or in an entire paragraph.
• Identifies the relationships between the pieces of evidence that you are using to support your argument.

Not all papers require thesis statements! Ask your instructor if you’re in doubt whether you need one.

Identify a topic

Your topic is the subject about which you will write. Your assignment may suggest several ways of looking at a topic; or it may name a fairly general concept that you will explore or analyze in your paper.

Consider what your assignment asks you to do

Inform yourself about your topic, focus on one aspect of your topic, ask yourself whether your topic is worthy of your efforts, generate a topic from an assignment.

Below are some possible topics based on sample assignments.

Sample assignment 1

Analyze Spain’s neutrality in World War II.

Identified topic

Franco’s role in the diplomatic relationships between the Allies and the Axis

This topic avoids generalities such as “Spain” and “World War II,” addressing instead on Franco’s role (a specific aspect of “Spain”) and the diplomatic relations between the Allies and Axis (a specific aspect of World War II).

Sample assignment 2

Analyze one of Homer’s epic similes in the Iliad.

The relationship between the portrayal of warfare and the epic simile about Simoisius at 4.547-64.

This topic focuses on a single simile and relates it to a single aspect of the Iliad ( warfare being a major theme in that work).

Developing a Thesis Statement–Additional information

Your assignment may suggest several ways of looking at a topic, or it may name a fairly general concept that you will explore or analyze in your paper. You’ll want to read your assignment carefully, looking for key terms that you can use to focus your topic.

Sample assignment: Analyze Spain’s neutrality in World War II Key terms: analyze, Spain’s neutrality, World War II

After you’ve identified the key words in your topic, the next step is to read about them in several sources, or generate as much information as possible through an analysis of your topic. Obviously, the more material or knowledge you have, the more possibilities will be available for a strong argument. For the sample assignment above, you’ll want to look at books and articles on World War II in general, and Spain’s neutrality in particular.

As you consider your options, you must decide to focus on one aspect of your topic. This means that you cannot include everything you’ve learned about your topic, nor should you go off in several directions. If you end up covering too many different aspects of a topic, your paper will sprawl and be unconvincing in its argument, and it most likely will not fulfull the assignment requirements.

For the sample assignment above, both Spain’s neutrality and World War II are topics far too broad to explore in a paper. You may instead decide to focus on Franco’s role in the diplomatic relationships between the Allies and the Axis , which narrows down what aspects of Spain’s neutrality and World War II you want to discuss, as well as establishes a specific link between those two aspects.

Before you go too far, however, ask yourself whether your topic is worthy of your efforts. Try to avoid topics that already have too much written about them (i.e., “eating disorders and body image among adolescent women”) or that simply are not important (i.e. “why I like ice cream”). These topics may lead to a thesis that is either dry fact or a weird claim that cannot be supported. A good thesis falls somewhere between the two extremes. To arrive at this point, ask yourself what is new, interesting, contestable, or controversial about your topic.

As you work on your thesis, remember to keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times . Sometimes your thesis needs to evolve as you develop new insights, find new evidence, or take a different approach to your topic.

Derive a main point from topic

Once you have a topic, you will have to decide what the main point of your paper will be. This point, the “controlling idea,” becomes the core of your argument (thesis statement) and it is the unifying idea to which you will relate all your sub-theses. You can then turn this “controlling idea” into a purpose statement about what you intend to do in your paper.

Look for patterns in your evidence

Compose a purpose statement.

Consult the examples below for suggestions on how to look for patterns in your evidence and construct a purpose statement.

• Franco first tried to negotiate with the Axis
• Franco turned to the Allies when he couldn’t get some concessions that he wanted from the Axis

Possible conclusion:

Spain’s neutrality in WWII occurred for an entirely personal reason: Franco’s desire to preserve his own (and Spain’s) power.

Purpose statement

This paper will analyze Franco’s diplomacy during World War II to see how it contributed to Spain’s neutrality.

• The simile compares Simoisius to a tree, which is a peaceful, natural image.
• The tree in the simile is chopped down to make wheels for a chariot, which is an object used in warfare.

At first, the simile seems to take the reader away from the world of warfare, but we end up back in that world by the end.

This paper will analyze the way the simile about Simoisius at 4.547-64 moves in and out of the world of warfare.

Derive purpose statement from topic

To find out what your “controlling idea” is, you have to examine and evaluate your evidence . As you consider your evidence, you may notice patterns emerging, data repeated in more than one source, or facts that favor one view more than another. These patterns or data may then lead you to some conclusions about your topic and suggest that you can successfully argue for one idea better than another.

For instance, you might find out that Franco first tried to negotiate with the Axis, but when he couldn’t get some concessions that he wanted from them, he turned to the Allies. As you read more about Franco’s decisions, you may conclude that Spain’s neutrality in WWII occurred for an entirely personal reason: his desire to preserve his own (and Spain’s) power. Based on this conclusion, you can then write a trial thesis statement to help you decide what material belongs in your paper.

Sometimes you won’t be able to find a focus or identify your “spin” or specific argument immediately. Like some writers, you might begin with a purpose statement just to get yourself going. A purpose statement is one or more sentences that announce your topic and indicate the structure of the paper but do not state the conclusions you have drawn . Thus, you might begin with something like this:

• This paper will look at modern language to see if it reflects male dominance or female oppression.
• I plan to analyze anger and derision in offensive language to see if they represent a challenge of society’s authority.

At some point, you can turn a purpose statement into a thesis statement. As you think and write about your topic, you can restrict, clarify, and refine your argument, crafting your thesis statement to reflect your thinking.

As you work on your thesis, remember to keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times. Sometimes your thesis needs to evolve as you develop new insights, find new evidence, or take a different approach to your topic.

Compose a draft thesis statement

If you are writing a paper that will have an argumentative thesis and are having trouble getting started, the techniques in the table below may help you develop a temporary or “working” thesis statement.

Begin with a purpose statement that you will later turn into a thesis statement.

Assignment: Discuss the history of the Reform Party and explain its influence on the 1990 presidential and Congressional election.

Purpose Statement: This paper briefly sketches the history of the grassroots, conservative, Perot-led Reform Party and analyzes how it influenced the economic and social ideologies of the two mainstream parties.

Question-to-Assertion

If your assignment asks a specific question(s), turn the question(s) into an assertion and give reasons why it is true or reasons for your opinion.

Assignment : What do Aylmer and Rappaccini have to be proud of? Why aren’t they satisfied with these things? How does pride, as demonstrated in “The Birthmark” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” lead to unexpected problems?

Beginning thesis statement: Alymer and Rappaccinni are proud of their great knowledge; however, they are also very greedy and are driven to use their knowledge to alter some aspect of nature as a test of their ability. Evil results when they try to “play God.”

Write a sentence that summarizes the main idea of the essay you plan to write.

Main idea: The reason some toys succeed in the market is that they appeal to the consumers’ sense of the ridiculous and their basic desire to laugh at themselves.

Make a list of the ideas that you want to include; consider the ideas and try to group them.

• nature = peaceful
• war matériel = violent (competes with 1?)
• need for time and space to mourn the dead
• war is inescapable (competes with 3?)

Use a formula to arrive at a working thesis statement (you will revise this later).

• although most readers of _______ have argued that _______, closer examination shows that _______.
• _______ uses _______ and _____ to prove that ________.
• phenomenon x is a result of the combination of __________, __________, and _________.

What to keep in mind as you draft an initial thesis statement

Beginning statements obtained through the methods illustrated above can serve as a framework for planning or drafting your paper, but remember they’re not yet the specific, argumentative thesis you want for the final version of your paper. In fact, in its first stages, a thesis statement usually is ill-formed or rough and serves only as a planning tool.

As you write, you may discover evidence that does not fit your temporary or “working” thesis. Or you may reach deeper insights about your topic as you do more research, and you will find that your thesis statement has to be more complicated to match the evidence that you want to use.

You must be willing to reject or omit some evidence in order to keep your paper cohesive and your reader focused. Or you may have to revise your thesis to match the evidence and insights that you want to discuss. Read your draft carefully, noting the conclusions you have drawn and the major ideas which support or prove those conclusions. These will be the elements of your final thesis statement.

Sometimes you will not be able to identify these elements in your early drafts, but as you consider how your argument is developing and how your evidence supports your main idea, ask yourself, “ What is the main point that I want to prove/discuss? ” and “ How will I convince the reader that this is true? ” When you can answer these questions, then you can begin to refine the thesis statement.

Refine and polish the thesis statement

To get to your final thesis, you’ll need to refine your draft thesis so that it’s specific and arguable.

• Ask if your draft thesis addresses the assignment
• Question each part of your draft thesis
• Clarify vague phrases and assertions
• Investigate alternatives to your draft thesis

Consult the example below for suggestions on how to refine your draft thesis statement.

Sample Assignment

Choose an activity and define it as a symbol of American culture. Your essay should cause the reader to think critically about the society which produces and enjoys that activity.

• Ask The phenomenon of drive-in facilities is an interesting symbol of american culture, and these facilities demonstrate significant characteristics of our society.This statement does not fulfill the assignment because it does not require the reader to think critically about society.

Drive-ins are an interesting symbol of American culture because they represent Americans’ significant creativity and business ingenuity.

Among the types of drive-in facilities familiar during the twentieth century, drive-in movie theaters best represent American creativity, not merely because they were the forerunner of later drive-ins and drive-throughs, but because of their impact on our culture: they changed our relationship to the automobile, changed the way people experienced movies, and changed movie-going into a family activity.

While drive-in facilities such as those at fast-food establishments, banks, pharmacies, and dry cleaners symbolize America’s economic ingenuity, they also have affected our personal standards.

While drive-in facilities such as those at fast- food restaurants, banks, pharmacies, and dry cleaners symbolize (1) Americans’ business ingenuity, they also have contributed (2) to an increasing homogenization of our culture, (3) a willingness to depersonalize relationships with others, and (4) a tendency to sacrifice quality for convenience.

This statement is now specific and fulfills all parts of the assignment. This version, like any good thesis, is not self-evident; its points, 1-4, will have to be proven with evidence in the body of the paper. The numbers in this statement indicate the order in which the points will be presented. Depending on the length of the paper, there could be one paragraph for each numbered item or there could be blocks of paragraph for even pages for each one.

Complete the final thesis statement

The bottom line.

As you move through the process of crafting a thesis, you’ll need to remember four things:

• Context matters! Think about your course materials and lectures. Try to relate your thesis to the ideas your instructor is discussing.
• As you go through the process described in this section, always keep your assignment in mind . You will be more successful when your thesis (and paper) responds to the assignment than if it argues a semi-related idea.
• Your thesis statement should be precise, focused, and contestable ; it should predict the sub-theses or blocks of information that you will use to prove your argument.
• Make sure that you keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times. Change your thesis as your paper evolves, because you do not want your thesis to promise more than your paper actually delivers.

In the beginning, the thesis statement was a tool to help you sharpen your focus, limit material and establish the paper’s purpose. When your paper is finished, however, the thesis statement becomes a tool for your reader. It tells the reader what you have learned about your topic and what evidence led you to your conclusion. It keeps the reader on track–well able to understand and appreciate your argument.

Writing Process and Structure

This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.

Getting Started with Your Paper

Interpreting Writing Assignments from Your Courses

Generating Ideas for

Creating an Argument

Thesis vs. Purpose Statements

Architecture of Arguments

Working with Sources

Quoting and Paraphrasing Sources

Using Literary Quotations

Citing Sources in Your Paper

Drafting Your Paper

Generating Ideas for Your Paper

Introductions

Paragraphing

Developing Strategic Transitions

Conclusions

Revising Your Paper

Peer Reviews

Reverse Outlines

Revising an Argumentative Paper

Revision Strategies for Longer Projects

Finishing Your Paper

Twelve Common Errors: An Editing Checklist

How to Proofread your Paper

Writing Collaboratively

Collaborative and Group Writing

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Writing a Paper: Thesis Statements

Basics of thesis statements.

The thesis statement is the brief articulation of your paper's central argument and purpose. You might hear it referred to as simply a "thesis." Every scholarly paper should have a thesis statement, and strong thesis statements are concise, specific, and arguable. Concise means the thesis is short: perhaps one or two sentences for a shorter paper. Specific means the thesis deals with a narrow and focused topic, appropriate to the paper's length. Arguable means that a scholar in your field could disagree (or perhaps already has!).

Strong thesis statements address specific intellectual questions, have clear positions, and use a structure that reflects the overall structure of the paper. Read on to learn more about constructing a strong thesis statement.

Being Specific

This thesis statement has no specific argument:

Needs Improvement: In this essay, I will examine two scholarly articles to find similarities and differences.

This statement is concise, but it is neither specific nor arguable—a reader might wonder, "Which scholarly articles? What is the topic of this paper? What field is the author writing in?" Additionally, the purpose of the paper—to "examine…to find similarities and differences" is not of a scholarly level. Identifying similarities and differences is a good first step, but strong academic argument goes further, analyzing what those similarities and differences might mean or imply.

Better: In this essay, I will argue that Bowler's (2003) autocratic management style, when coupled with Smith's (2007) theory of social cognition, can reduce the expenses associated with employee turnover.

The new revision here is still concise, as well as specific and arguable.  We can see that it is specific because the writer is mentioning (a) concrete ideas and (b) exact authors.  We can also gather the field (business) and the topic (management and employee turnover). The statement is arguable because the student goes beyond merely comparing; he or she draws conclusions from that comparison ("can reduce the expenses associated with employee turnover").

Making a Unique Argument

This thesis draft repeats the language of the writing prompt without making a unique argument:

Needs Improvement: The purpose of this essay is to monitor, assess, and evaluate an educational program for its strengths and weaknesses. Then, I will provide suggestions for improvement.

You can see here that the student has simply stated the paper's assignment, without articulating specifically how he or she will address it. The student can correct this error simply by phrasing the thesis statement as a specific answer to the assignment prompt.

Better: Through a series of student interviews, I found that Kennedy High School's antibullying program was ineffective. In order to address issues of conflict between students, I argue that Kennedy High School should embrace policies outlined by the California Department of Education (2010).

Words like "ineffective" and "argue" show here that the student has clearly thought through the assignment and analyzed the material; he or she is putting forth a specific and debatable position. The concrete information ("student interviews," "antibullying") further prepares the reader for the body of the paper and demonstrates how the student has addressed the assignment prompt without just restating that language.

Creating a Debate

This thesis statement includes only obvious fact or plot summary instead of argument:

Needs Improvement: Leadership is an important quality in nurse educators.

A good strategy to determine if your thesis statement is too broad (and therefore, not arguable) is to ask yourself, "Would a scholar in my field disagree with this point?" Here, we can see easily that no scholar is likely to argue that leadership is an unimportant quality in nurse educators.  The student needs to come up with a more arguable claim, and probably a narrower one; remember that a short paper needs a more focused topic than a dissertation.

Better: Roderick's (2009) theory of participatory leadership  is particularly appropriate to nurse educators working within the emergency medicine field, where students benefit most from collegial and kinesthetic learning.

Here, the student has identified a particular type of leadership ("participatory leadership"), narrowing the topic, and has made an arguable claim (this type of leadership is "appropriate" to a specific type of nurse educator). Conceivably, a scholar in the nursing field might disagree with this approach. The student's paper can now proceed, providing specific pieces of evidence to support the arguable central claim.

Choosing the Right Words

This thesis statement uses large or scholarly-sounding words that have no real substance:

Needs Improvement: Scholars should work to seize metacognitive outcomes by harnessing discipline-based networks to empower collaborative infrastructures.

There are many words in this sentence that may be buzzwords in the student's field or key terms taken from other texts, but together they do not communicate a clear, specific meaning. Sometimes students think scholarly writing means constructing complex sentences using special language, but actually it's usually a stronger choice to write clear, simple sentences. When in doubt, remember that your ideas should be complex, not your sentence structure.

Better: Ecologists should work to educate the U.S. public on conservation methods by making use of local and national green organizations to create a widespread communication plan.

Notice in the revision that the field is now clear (ecology), and the language has been made much more field-specific ("conservation methods," "green organizations"), so the reader is able to see concretely the ideas the student is communicating.

Leaving Room for Discussion

This thesis statement is not capable of development or advancement in the paper:

Needs Improvement: There are always alternatives to illegal drug use.

This sample thesis statement makes a claim, but it is not a claim that will sustain extended discussion. This claim is the type of claim that might be appropriate for the conclusion of a paper, but in the beginning of the paper, the student is left with nowhere to go. What further points can be made? If there are "always alternatives" to the problem the student is identifying, then why bother developing a paper around that claim? Ideally, a thesis statement should be complex enough to explore over the length of the entire paper.

Better: The most effective treatment plan for methamphetamine addiction may be a combination of pharmacological and cognitive therapy, as argued by Baker (2008), Smith (2009), and Xavier (2011).

In the revised thesis, you can see the student make a specific, debatable claim that has the potential to generate several pages' worth of discussion. When drafting a thesis statement, think about the questions your thesis statement will generate: What follow-up inquiries might a reader have? In the first example, there are almost no additional questions implied, but the revised example allows for a good deal more exploration.

Thesis Mad Libs

If you are having trouble getting started, try using the models below to generate a rough model of a thesis statement! These models are intended for drafting purposes only and should not appear in your final work.

• In this essay, I argue ____, using ______ to assert _____.
• While scholars have often argued ______, I argue______, because_______.
• Through an analysis of ______, I argue ______, which is important because_______.

Words to Avoid and to Embrace

When drafting your thesis statement, avoid words like explore, investigate, learn, compile, summarize , and explain to describe the main purpose of your paper. These words imply a paper that summarizes or "reports," rather than synthesizing and analyzing.

Instead of the terms above, try words like argue, critique, question , and interrogate . These more analytical words may help you begin strongly, by articulating a specific, critical, scholarly position.

Read Kayla's blog post for tips on taking a stand in a well-crafted thesis statement.

Related Resources

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How to write a thesis statement, what is a thesis statement.

Almost all of us—even if we don’t do it consciously—look early in an essay for a one- or two-sentence condensation of the argument or analysis that is to follow. We refer to that condensation as a thesis statement.

Why Should Your Essay Contain a Thesis Statement?

• to test your ideas by distilling them into a sentence or two
• to better organize and develop your argument
• to provide your reader with a “guide” to your argument

In general, your thesis statement will accomplish these goals if you think of the thesis as the answer to the question your paper explores.

How Can You Write a Good Thesis Statement?

Here are some helpful hints to get you started. You can either scroll down or select a link to a specific topic.

How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is Assigned How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is not Assigned How to Tell a Strong Thesis Statement from a Weak One

How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is Assigned

Almost all assignments, no matter how complicated, can be reduced to a single question. Your first step, then, is to distill the assignment into a specific question. For example, if your assignment is, “Write a report to the local school board explaining the potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class,” turn the request into a question like, “What are the potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class?” After you’ve chosen the question your essay will answer, compose one or two complete sentences answering that question.

Q: “What are the potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class?” A: “The potential benefits of using computers in a fourth-grade class are . . .”

A: “Using computers in a fourth-grade class promises to improve . . .”

The answer to the question is the thesis statement for the essay.

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How to Generate a Thesis Statement if the Topic is not Assigned

Even if your assignment doesn’t ask a specific question, your thesis statement still needs to answer a question about the issue you’d like to explore. In this situation, your job is to figure out what question you’d like to write about.

A good thesis statement will usually include the following four attributes:

• take on a subject upon which reasonable people could disagree
• deal with a subject that can be adequately treated given the nature of the assignment
• express one main idea
• assert your conclusions about a subject

Let’s see how to generate a thesis statement for a social policy paper.

Brainstorm the topic . Let’s say that your class focuses upon the problems posed by changes in the dietary habits of Americans. You find that you are interested in the amount of sugar Americans consume.

You start out with a thesis statement like this:

Sugar consumption.

This fragment isn’t a thesis statement. Instead, it simply indicates a general subject. Furthermore, your reader doesn’t know what you want to say about sugar consumption.

Narrow the topic . Your readings about the topic, however, have led you to the conclusion that elementary school children are consuming far more sugar than is healthy.

You change your thesis to look like this:

Reducing sugar consumption by elementary school children.

This fragment not only announces your subject, but it focuses on one segment of the population: elementary school children. Furthermore, it raises a subject upon which reasonable people could disagree, because while most people might agree that children consume more sugar than they used to, not everyone would agree on what should be done or who should do it. You should note that this fragment is not a thesis statement because your reader doesn’t know your conclusions on the topic.

Take a position on the topic. After reflecting on the topic a little while longer, you decide that what you really want to say about this topic is that something should be done to reduce the amount of sugar these children consume.

You revise your thesis statement to look like this:

More attention should be paid to the food and beverage choices available to elementary school children.

This statement asserts your position, but the terms more attention and food and beverage choices are vague.

Use specific language . You decide to explain what you mean about food and beverage choices , so you write:

Experts estimate that half of elementary school children consume nine times the recommended daily allowance of sugar.

This statement is specific, but it isn’t a thesis. It merely reports a statistic instead of making an assertion.

Make an assertion based on clearly stated support. You finally revise your thesis statement one more time to look like this:

Because half of all American elementary school children consume nine times the recommended daily allowance of sugar, schools should be required to replace the beverages in soda machines with healthy alternatives.

Notice how the thesis answers the question, “What should be done to reduce sugar consumption by children, and who should do it?” When you started thinking about the paper, you may not have had a specific question in mind, but as you became more involved in the topic, your ideas became more specific. Your thesis changed to reflect your new insights.

How to Tell a Strong Thesis Statement from a Weak One

1. a strong thesis statement takes some sort of stand..

Remember that your thesis needs to show your conclusions about a subject. For example, if you are writing a paper for a class on fitness, you might be asked to choose a popular weight-loss product to evaluate. Here are two thesis statements:

There are some negative and positive aspects to the Banana Herb Tea Supplement.

This is a weak thesis statement. First, it fails to take a stand. Second, the phrase negative and positive aspects is vague.

Because Banana Herb Tea Supplement promotes rapid weight loss that results in the loss of muscle and lean body mass, it poses a potential danger to customers.

This is a strong thesis because it takes a stand, and because it's specific.

2. A strong thesis statement justifies discussion.

Your thesis should indicate the point of the discussion. If your assignment is to write a paper on kinship systems, using your own family as an example, you might come up with either of these two thesis statements:

My family is an extended family.

This is a weak thesis because it merely states an observation. Your reader won’t be able to tell the point of the statement, and will probably stop reading.

While most American families would view consanguineal marriage as a threat to the nuclear family structure, many Iranian families, like my own, believe that these marriages help reinforce kinship ties in an extended family.

This is a strong thesis because it shows how your experience contradicts a widely-accepted view. A good strategy for creating a strong thesis is to show that the topic is controversial. Readers will be interested in reading the rest of the essay to see how you support your point.

3. A strong thesis statement expresses one main idea.

Readers need to be able to see that your paper has one main point. If your thesis statement expresses more than one idea, then you might confuse your readers about the subject of your paper. For example:

Companies need to exploit the marketing potential of the Internet, and Web pages can provide both advertising and customer support.

This is a weak thesis statement because the reader can’t decide whether the paper is about marketing on the Internet or Web pages. To revise the thesis, the relationship between the two ideas needs to become more clear. One way to revise the thesis would be to write:

Because the Internet is filled with tremendous marketing potential, companies should exploit this potential by using Web pages that offer both advertising and customer support.

This is a strong thesis because it shows that the two ideas are related. Hint: a great many clear and engaging thesis statements contain words like because , since , so , although , unless , and however .

4. A strong thesis statement is specific.

A thesis statement should show exactly what your paper will be about, and will help you keep your paper to a manageable topic. For example, if you're writing a seven-to-ten page paper on hunger, you might say:

World hunger has many causes and effects.

This is a weak thesis statement for two major reasons. First, world hunger can’t be discussed thoroughly in seven to ten pages. Second, many causes and effects is vague. You should be able to identify specific causes and effects. A revised thesis might look like this:

Hunger persists in Glandelinia because jobs are scarce and farming in the infertile soil is rarely profitable.

This is a strong thesis statement because it narrows the subject to a more specific and manageable topic, and it also identifies the specific causes for the existence of hunger.

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Tips and Examples for Writing Thesis Statements

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This resource provides tips for creating a thesis statement and examples of different types of thesis statements.

Tips for Writing Your Thesis Statement

1. Determine what kind of paper you are writing:

• An analytical paper breaks down an issue or an idea into its component parts, evaluates the issue or idea, and presents this breakdown and evaluation to the audience.
• An expository (explanatory) paper explains something to the audience.
• An argumentative paper makes a claim about a topic and justifies this claim with specific evidence. The claim could be an opinion, a policy proposal, an evaluation, a cause-and-effect statement, or an interpretation. The goal of the argumentative paper is to convince the audience that the claim is true based on the evidence provided.

If you are writing a text that does not fall under these three categories (e.g., a narrative), a thesis statement somewhere in the first paragraph could still be helpful to your reader.

2. Your thesis statement should be specific—it should cover only what you will discuss in your paper and should be supported with specific evidence.

3. The thesis statement usually appears at the end of the first paragraph of a paper.

4. Your topic may change as you write, so you may need to revise your thesis statement to reflect exactly what you have discussed in the paper.

Thesis Statement Examples

Example of an analytical thesis statement:

The paper that follows should:

• Explain the analysis of the college admission process
• Explain the challenge facing admissions counselors

Example of an expository (explanatory) thesis statement:

• Explain how students spend their time studying, attending class, and socializing with peers

Example of an argumentative thesis statement:

• Present an argument and give evidence to support the claim that students should pursue community projects before entering college

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• Knowledge Base
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• What Is a Thesis? | Ultimate Guide & Examples

What Is a Thesis? | Ultimate Guide & Examples

Published on 15 September 2022 by Tegan George . Revised on 5 December 2023.

A thesis is a type of research paper based on your original research. It is usually submitted as the final step of a PhD program in the UK.

Writing a thesis can be a daunting experience. Indeed, alongside a dissertation , it is the longest piece of writing students typically complete. It relies on your ability to conduct research from start to finish: designing your research , collecting data , developing a robust analysis, drawing strong conclusions , and writing concisely .

Thesis template

You can also download our full thesis template in the format of your choice below. Our template includes a ready-made table of contents , as well as guidance for what each chapter should include. It’s easy to make it your own, and can help you get started.

Download Word template Download Google Docs template

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Table of contents

Thesis vs. thesis statement, how to structure a thesis, acknowledgements or preface, list of figures and tables, list of abbreviations, introduction, literature review, methodology, reference list, proofreading and editing, defending your thesis, frequently asked questions about theses.

You may have heard the word thesis as a standalone term or as a component of academic writing called a thesis statement . Keep in mind that these are two very different things.

• A thesis statement is a very common component of an essay, particularly in the humanities. It usually comprises 1 or 2 sentences in the introduction of your essay , and should clearly and concisely summarise the central points of your academic essay .
• A thesis is a long-form piece of academic writing, often taking more than a full semester to complete. It is generally a degree requirement to complete a PhD program.
• In many countries, particularly the UK, a dissertation is generally written at the bachelor’s or master’s level.
• In the US, a dissertation is generally written as a final step toward obtaining a PhD.

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

The final structure of your thesis depends on a variety of components, such as:

• Your discipline
• Your theoretical approach

Humanities theses are often structured more like a longer-form essay . Just like in an essay, you build an argument to support a central thesis.

In both hard and social sciences, theses typically include an introduction , literature review , methodology section ,  results section , discussion section , and conclusion section . These are each presented in their own dedicated section or chapter. In some cases, you might want to add an appendix .

Thesis examples

We’ve compiled a short list of thesis examples to help you get started.

• Example thesis #1:   ‘Abolition, Africans, and Abstraction: the Influence of the “Noble Savage” on British and French Antislavery Thought, 1787-1807’ by Suchait Kahlon.
• Example thesis #2: ‘”A Starving Man Helping Another Starving Man”: UNRRA, India, and the Genesis of Global Relief, 1943-1947’ by Julian Saint Reiman.

The very first page of your thesis contains all necessary identifying information, including:

• Your full title
• Your full name
• Your department
• Your institution and degree program
• Your submission date.

Sometimes the title page also includes your student ID, the name of your supervisor, or the university’s logo. Check out your university’s guidelines if you’re not sure.

Read more about title pages

The acknowledgements section is usually optional. Its main point is to allow you to thank everyone who helped you in your thesis journey, such as supervisors, friends, or family. You can also choose to write a preface , but it’s typically one or the other, not both.

Read more about acknowledgements Read more about prefaces

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An abstract is a short summary of your thesis. Usually a maximum of 300 words long, it’s should include brief descriptions of your research objectives , methods, results, and conclusions. Though it may seem short, it introduces your work to your audience, serving as a first impression of your thesis.

Read more about abstracts

A table of contents lists all of your sections, plus their corresponding page numbers and subheadings if you have them. This helps your reader seamlessly navigate your document.

Your table of contents should include all the major parts of your thesis. In particular, don’t forget the the appendices. If you used heading styles, it’s easy to generate an automatic table Microsoft Word.

Read more about tables of contents

While not mandatory, if you used a lot of tables and/or figures, it’s nice to include a list of them to help guide your reader. It’s also easy to generate one of these in Word: just use the ‘Insert Caption’ feature.

Read more about lists of figures and tables

If you have used a lot of industry- or field-specific abbreviations in your thesis, you should include them in an alphabetised list of abbreviations . This way, your readers can easily look up any meanings they aren’t familiar with.

Read more about lists of abbreviations

Relatedly, if you find yourself using a lot of very specialised or field-specific terms that may not be familiar to your reader, consider including a glossary . Alphabetise the terms you want to include with a brief definition.

Read more about glossaries

An introduction sets up the topic, purpose, and relevance of your thesis, as well as expectations for your reader. This should:

• Ground your research topic , sharing any background information your reader may need
• Define the scope of your work
• Introduce any existing research on your topic, situating your work within a broader problem or debate
• State your research question(s)
• Outline (briefly) how the remainder of your work will proceed

In other words, your introduction should clearly and concisely show your reader the “what, why, and how” of your research.

Read more about introductions

A literature review helps you gain a robust understanding of any extant academic work on your topic, encompassing:

• Selecting relevant sources
• Determining the credibility of your sources
• Critically evaluating each of your sources
• Drawing connections between sources, including any themes, patterns, conflicts, or gaps

A literature review is not merely a summary of existing work. Rather, your literature review should ultimately lead to a clear justification for your own research, perhaps via:

• Addressing a gap in the literature
• Building on existing knowledge to draw new conclusions
• Exploring a new theoretical or methodological approach
• Introducing a new solution to an unresolved problem
• Definitively advocating for one side of a theoretical debate

Read more about literature reviews

Theoretical framework

Your literature review can often form the basis for your theoretical framework, but these are not the same thing. A theoretical framework defines and analyses the concepts and theories that your research hinges on.

Read more about theoretical frameworks

Your methodology chapter shows your reader how you conducted your research. It should be written clearly and methodically, easily allowing your reader to critically assess the credibility of your argument. Furthermore, your methods section should convince your reader that your method was the best way to answer your research question.

A methodology section should generally include:

• Your overall approach ( quantitative vs. qualitative )
• Your research methods (e.g., a longitudinal study )
• Your data collection methods (e.g., interviews or a controlled experiment
• Any tools or materials you used (e.g., computer software)
• The data analysis methods you chose (e.g., statistical analysis , discourse analysis )
• A strong, but not defensive justification of your methods

Read more about methodology sections

Your results section should highlight what your methodology discovered. These two sections work in tandem, but shouldn’t repeat each other. While your results section can include hypotheses or themes, don’t include any speculation or new arguments here.

Your results section should:

• State each (relevant) result with any (relevant) descriptive statistics (e.g., mean , standard deviation ) and inferential statistics (e.g., test statistics , p values )
• Explain how each result relates to the research question
• Determine whether the hypothesis was supported

Additional data (like raw numbers or interview transcripts ) can be included as an appendix . You can include tables and figures, but only if they help the reader better understand your results.

Read more about results sections

Your discussion section is where you can interpret your results in detail. Did they meet your expectations? How well do they fit within the framework that you built? You can refer back to any relevant source material to situate your results within your field, but leave most of that analysis in your literature review.

For any unexpected results, offer explanations or alternative interpretations of your data.

Read more about discussion sections

Your thesis conclusion should concisely answer your main research question. It should leave your reader with an ultra-clear understanding of your central argument, and emphasise what your research specifically has contributed to your field.

Why does your research matter? What recommendations for future research do you have? Lastly, wrap up your work with any concluding remarks.

Read more about conclusions

In order to avoid plagiarism , don’t forget to include a full reference list at the end of your thesis, citing the sources that you used. Choose one citation style and follow it consistently throughout your thesis, taking note of the formatting requirements of each style.

Which style you choose is often set by your department or your field, but common styles include MLA , Chicago , and APA.

Create APA citations Create MLA citations

In order to stay clear and concise, your thesis should include the most essential information needed to answer your research question. However, chances are you have many contributing documents, like interview transcripts or survey questions . These can be added as appendices , to save space in the main body.

Read more about appendices

Once you’re done writing, the next part of your editing process begins. Leave plenty of time for proofreading and editing prior to submission. Nothing looks worse than grammar mistakes or sloppy spelling errors!

Consider using a professional thesis editing service to make sure your final project is perfect.

Once you’ve submitted your final product, it’s common practice to have a thesis defense, an oral component of your finished work. This is scheduled by your advisor or committee, and usually entails a presentation and Q&A session.

After your defense, your committee will meet to determine if you deserve any departmental honors or accolades. However, keep in mind that defenses are usually just a formality. If there are any serious issues with your work, these should be resolved with your advisor way before a defense.

The conclusion of your thesis or dissertation shouldn’t take up more than 5-7% of your overall word count.

When you mention different chapters within your text, it’s considered best to use Roman numerals for most citation styles. However, the most important thing here is to remain consistent whenever using numbers in your dissertation .

If you only used a few abbreviations in your thesis or dissertation, you don’t necessarily need to include a list of abbreviations .

If your abbreviations are numerous, or if you think they won’t be known to your audience, it’s never a bad idea to add one. They can also improve readability, minimising confusion about abbreviations unfamiliar to your reader.

A thesis or dissertation outline is one of the most critical first steps in your writing process. It helps you to lay out and organise your ideas and can provide you with a roadmap for deciding what kind of research you’d like to undertake.

Generally, an outline contains information on the different sections included in your thesis or dissertation, such as:

• Your anticipated title
• Your abstract
• Your chapters (sometimes subdivided into further topics like literature review, research methods, avenues for future research, etc.)

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HOW TO WRITE A THESIS: Steps by step guide

Introduction

In the academic world, one of the hallmark rites signifying mastery of a course or academic area is the writing of a thesis . Essentially a thesis is a typewritten work, usually 50 to 350 pages in length depending on institutions, discipline, and educational level which is often aimed at addressing a particular problem in a given field.

While a thesis is inadequate to address all the problems in a given field, it is succinct enough to address a specialized aspect of the problem by taking a stance or making a claim on what the resolution of the problem should be. Writing a thesis can be a very daunting task because most times it is the first complex research undertaking for the student. The lack of research and writing skills to write a thesis coupled with fear and a limited time frame are factors that makes the writing of a thesis daunting. However, commitment to excellence on the part of the student combined with some of the techniques and methods that will be discussed below gives a fair chance that the student will be able to deliver an excellent thesis regardless of the subject area, the depth of the research specialization and the daunting amount of materials that must be comprehended(RE: write a thesis or writing a thesis).

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What is a thesis?

A thesis is a statement, theory, argument, proposal or proposition, which is put forward as a premise to be maintained or proved. It explains the stand someone takes on an issue and how the person intends to justify the stand. It is always better to pick a topic that will be able to render professional help, a topic that you will be happy to talk about with anybody, a topic you have personal interest and passion for, because when writing a thesis gets frustrating personal interest, happiness and passion coupled with the professional help it will be easier to write a great thesis (see you through the thesis). One has to source for a lot of information concerning the topic one is writing a thesis on in order to know the important question, because for you to take a good stand on an issue you have to study the evidence first.

Qualities of a good thesis

A good thesis has the following qualities

• A good thesis must solve an existing problem in the society, organisation, government among others.
• A good thesis should be contestable, it should propose a point that is arguable which people can agree with or disagree.
• It is specific, clear and focused.
•   A good thesis does not use general terms and abstractions.  
• The claims of a good thesis should be definable and arguable.
• It anticipates the counter-argument s
• It does not use unclear language
• It avoids the first person. (“In my opinion”)
• A strong thesis should be able to take a stand and not just taking a stand but should be able to justify the stand that is taken, so that the reader will be tempted to ask questions like how or why.
• The thesis should be arguable, contestable, focused, specific, and clear. Make your thesis clear, strong and easy to find.
• The conclusion of a thesis should be based on evidence.

Steps in writing a Thesis

• First, think about good topics and theories that you can write before writing the thesis, then pick a topic. The topic or thesis statement is derived from a review of existing literature in the area of study that the researcher wants to explore. This route is taken when the unknowns in an area of study are not yet defined. Some areas of study have existing problems yearning to be solved and the drafting of the thesis topic or statement revolves around a selection of one of these problems.
• Once you have a good thesis, put it down and draw an outline . The outline is like a map of the whole thesis and it covers more commonly the introduction, literature review, discussion of methodology, discussion of results and the thesis’ conclusions and recommendations. The outline might differ from one institution to another but the one described in the preceding sentence is what is more commonly obtainable. It is imperative at this point to note that the outline drew still requires other mini- outlines for each of the sections mentioned. The outlines and mini- outlines provide a graphical over- view of the whole project and can also be used in allocating the word- count for each section and sub- section based on the overall word- count requirement of the thesis(RE: write a thesis or writing a thesis).
• Literature search. Remember to draw a good outline you need to do literature search to familiarize yourself with the concepts and the works of others. Similarly, to achieve this, you need to read as much material that contains necessary information as you can. There will always be a counter argument for everything so anticipate it because it will help shape your thesis. Read everything you can–academic research, trade literature, and information in the popular press and on the Internet(RE: write a thesis or writing a thesis).
• After getting all the information you need, the knowledge you gathered should help in suggesting the aim of your thesis.

Remember; a thesis is not supposed to be a question or a list, thesis should specific and as clear as possible. The claims of a thesis should be definable and also arguable.

• Then collecting and analyzing data, after data analysis, the result of the analysis should be written and discussed, followed by summary, conclusion, recommendations, list of references and the appendices
• The last step is editing of the thesis and proper spell checking.

Structure of a Thesis

A conventional thesis has five chapters – chapter 1-5 which will be discussed in detail below. However, it is important to state that a thesis is not limited to any chapter or section as the case may be. In fact, a thesis can be five, six, seven or even eight chapters.  What determines the number of chapters in a thesis includes institution rules/ guideline, researcher choice, supervisor choice, programme or educational level. In fact, most PhD thesis are usually more than 5 chapters(RE: write a thesis or writing a thesis).

Preliminaries Pages: The preliminaries are the cover page, the title page, the table of contents page, and the abstract.

The introduction: The introduction is the first section and it provides as the name implies an introduction to the thesis. The introduction contains such aspects as the background to the study which provides information on the topic in the context of what is happening in the world as related to the topic. It also discusses the relevance of the topic to society, policies formulated success and failure. The introduction also contains the statement of the problem which is essentially a succinct description of the problem that the thesis want to solve and what the trend will be if the problem is not solved. The concluding part of the statement of problem ends with an outline of the research questions. These are the questions which when answered helps in achieving the aim of the thesis. The third section is the outline of research objectives. Conventionally research objectives re a conversion the research questions into an active statement form. Other parts of the introduction are a discussion of hypotheses (if any), the significance of the study, delimitations, proposed methodology and a discussion of the structure of the study(RE: write a thesis or writing a thesis).

The main body includes the following; the literature review, methodology, research results and discussion of the result, the summary, conclusion and recommendations, the list of references and the appendices.

The literature review : The literature review is often the most voluminous aspects of a thesis because it reviews past empirical and theoretical literature about the problem being studied. This section starts by discussing the concepts relevant to the problem as indicated in the topic, the relationship between the concepts and what discoveries have being made on topic based on the choice of methodologies. The validity of the studies reviewed are questioned and findings are compared in order to get a comprehensive picture of the problem. The literature review also discusses the theories and theoretical frameworks that are relevant to the problem, the gaps that are evident in literature and how the thesis being written helps in resolving some of the gaps.

The major importance of Literature review is that it specifies the gap in the existing knowledge (gap in literature). The source of the literature that is being reviewed should be specified. For instance; ‘It has been argued that if the rural youth are to be aware of their community development role they need to be educated’ Effiong, (1992). The author’s name can be at the beginning, end or in between the literature. The literature should be discussed and not just stated (RE: write a thesis or writing a thesis).

The methodology: The third section is a discussion of the research methodology adopted in the thesis and touches on aspects such as the research design, the area, population and sample that will be considered for the study as well as the sampling procedure. These aspects are discussed in terms of choice, method and rationale. This section also covers the sub- section of data collection, data analysis and measures of ensuring validity of study. It is the chapter 3. This chapter explains the method used in data collection and data analysis. It explains the methodology adopted and why it is the best method to be used, it also explains every step of data collection and analysis. The data used could be primary data or secondary data. While analysing the data, proper statistical tool should be used in order to fit the stated objectives of the thesis. The statistical tool could be; the spearman rank order correlation, chi square, analysis of variance (ANOVA) etc (RE: write a thesis or writing a thesis).

The findings and discussion of result : The next section is a discussion of findings based on the data collection instrumentation used and the objectives or hypotheses of study if any. It is the chapter 4. It is research results. This is the part that describes the research. It shows the result gotten from data that is collected and analysed. It discusses the result and how it relates to your profession.

Summary, Conclusion and Recommendation: This is normally the chapter 5. The last section discusses the summary of the study and the conclusions arrived at based on the findings discussed in the previous section. This section also presents any policy recommendations that the researcher wants to propose (RE: write a thesis or writing a thesis).

References: It cite all ideas, concepts, text, data that are not your own. It is acceptable to put the initials of the individual authors behind their last names. The way single author is referenced is different from the way more than one author is referenced (RE: write a thesis or writing a thesis).

The appendices; it includes all data in the appendix. Reference data or materials that is not easily available. It includes tables and calculations, List of equipment used for an experiment or details of complicated procedures. If a large number of references are consulted but all are not cited, it may also be included in the appendix. The appendices also contain supportive or complementary information like the questionnaire, the interview schedule, tables and charts while the references section contain an ordered list of all literature, academic and contemporary cited in the thesis. Different schools have their own preferred referencing styles(RE: write a thesis or writing a thesis).   

Follow the following steps to achieve successful thesis writing

Start writing early. Do not delay writing until you have finished your project or research. Write complete and concise “Technical Reports” as and when you finish each nugget of work. This way, you will remember everything you did and document it accurately, when the work is still fresh in your mind. This is especially so if your work involves programming.

Spot errors early. A well-written “Technical Report” will force you to think about what you have done, before you move on to something else. If anything is amiss, you will detect it at once and can easily correct it, rather than have to re-visit the work later, when you may be pressured for time and have lost touch with it.

Write your thesis from the inside out. Begin with the chapters on your own experimental work. You will develop confidence in writing them because you know your own work better than anyone else. Once you have overcome the initial inertia, move on to the other chapters.

End with a bang, not a whimper. First things first, and save the best for last. First and last impressions persist. Arrange your chapters so that your first and last experimental chapters are sound and solid.

Write the Introduction after writing the Conclusions. The examiner will read the Introduction first, and then the Conclusions, to see if the promises made in the former are indeed fulfilled in the latter. Ensure that your introduction and Conclusions match.

“No man is an Island”. The critical review of the literature places your work in context. Usually, one third of the PhD thesis is about others’ work; two thirds, what you have done yourself. After a thorough and critical literature review, the PhD candidate must be able to identify the major researchers in the field and make a sound proposal for doctoral research. Estimate the time to write your thesis and then multiply it by three to get the correct estimate. Writing at one stretch is very demanding and it is all too easy to underestimate the time required for it; inflating your first estimate by a factor of three is more realistic.

Punctuating your thesis

Punctuation Good punctuation makes reading easy. The simplest way to find out where to punctuate is to read aloud what you have written. Each time you pause, you should add a punctuation symbol. There are four major pause symbols, arranged below in ascending order of “degree of pause”:

• Comma. Use the comma to indicate a short pause or to separate items in a list. A pair of commas may delimit the beginning and end of a subordinate clause or phrase. Sometimes, this is also done with a pair of “em dashes” which are printed like this:
• Semi-colon. The semi-colon signifies a longer pause than the comma. It separates segments of a sentence that are “further apart” in position, or meaning, but which are nevertheless related. If the ideas were “closer together”, a comma would have been used. It is also used to separate two clauses that may stand on their own but which are too closely related for a colon or full stop to intervene between them.
• Colon. The colon is used before one or more examples of a concept, and whenever items are to be listed in a visually separate fashion. The sentence that introduced the itemized list you are now reading ended in a colon. It may also be used to separate two fairly—but not totally—independent clauses in a sentence.
• Full stop or period. The full stop ends a sentence. If the sentence embodies a question or an exclamation, then, of course, it is ended with a question mark or exclamation mark, respectively. The full stop is also used to terminate abbreviations like etc., (for et cetera), e.g., (for exempli gratia), et al., (for et alia) etc., but not with abbreviations for SI units. The readability of your writing will improve greatly if you take the trouble to learn the basic rules of punctuation given above.

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What Is a Thesis Paper?

When Do You Write a Thesis Paper?

How to write a thesis statement, dissertation vs. thesis, what types of theses are there.

Writing a thesis paper in college or graduate school is daunting but is also deeply satisfying when you are really into the subject you are exploring. Basically, a thesis paper is a long essay that poses an interesting research question and persuasively answers it. Along with an introductory paragraph providing background information on a topic you are examining, you will write a thesis statement that includes your own personal stance on the topic.

For instance, you could tackle an issue like gun control or legalizing marijuana and logically present evidence to support your opinion. Instructors want more from students than regurgitation of other writers’ work. Writing is about finding your own voice and expressing original ideas supported by credible facts and verifiable data. A thesis paper also helps you sharpen your critical thinking skills. You may even find the research process fun and exciting once you get started.

A thesis paper is a comprehensive research paper often written in consultation with a faculty adviser. Most thesis papers are written at the graduate level.

A thesis is the main idea of an academic paper that expresses the writer’s position on a topic. In other words, if you are writing about the death penalty, you would state your viewpoint upfront and introduce the arguments you will be presenting in defense of your stance. Having a clear, unmistakable thesis shows strength and confidence in your beliefs.

The thesis is typically located at the end of the introductory paragraph of the thesis paper. All research papers need a thesis to grab the reader’s attention and signal where the paper is heading. Length can vary from a one-page English composition essay to a Ph.D. dissertation that is hundreds of pages long. Everything included in the paper should directly and succinctly relate to the thesis. Extraneous material weakens a paper and detracts from the point you are trying to argue.

One of the biggest mistakes students make is jumping into a writing assignment before narrowing their topic, writing a thesis and developing an outline. A thesis that is too broad is unmanageable. A good thesis is clear and precise. An outline helps to ensure that the paper is cohesive and easy to follow. Ironically, a paper can take three times as long to write if you make it up as you go instead of developing major talking points when you first sit down at the computer.

The research process is easier to comprehend when you remind yourself that the goal is to test theories, find new knowledge, introduce different perspectives and gain deeper insight. Reviewing literature will help you formulate questions and figure out what you hope to achieve with your study. Your research questions will then lead you to a testable hypothesis. Next, you will write a thesis statement. The thesis statement presents a claim, proposal or opinion that can be supported or refuted with rational arguments.

Controversial subjects can be very interesting to research, but you must keep your emotions in check and objectively assess the credibility of sources. Academic research is scholarly and rational in tone and style. A thesis statement that is bombastic or judgmental is difficult to prove or disprove. For example, a thesis statement asserting that human genetic modification is evil and morally wrong is a matter of somebody’s emotional opinion that may or may not be swayed by facts. A better approach to such a topic would be to make the claim that further study is needed on the ethics and health implications of human genetic engineering.

At the master’s level, you write a thesis after taking core classes during the first half of your program. As part of your studies, you will submit several shorter papers that will help you develop the research skills and writing proficiency needed to write the long thesis required for graduation. Reading journal articles, attending professional conferences and meeting individually with professors can help you identify a topic, develop a thesis statement and organize the chapters of your paper.

The thesis paper is the culmination of your learning. A well-constructed thesis shows that you can comprehend and apply the theories, principles, practices and ethical codes of your field of study. The thesis paper is typically wrapped up and submitted the semester you intend to graduate. The thesis must be approved by your department before you will receive a master’s degree even if you have perfect grades in all your course work.

At the doctoral level, writing a dissertation is a serious undertaking done in stages throughout the program. You may even be asked to identify tentative topics for a dissertation at the time of application to the doctoral program. Graduate faculty look for students who share their particular research interests. Similarly, you will likely apply to schools conducting the type of research you hope to experience. You will also need to ask qualified instructors and professionals to serve on your thesis committee to monitor and evaluate your progress on the dissertation.

You start by drafting a thesis proposal outlining the who, what, when, how and why of your proposed research project. Once that is approved, you complete a review of the literature, conduct original research, analyze your results, discuss findings and make recommendations for future study. As you might guess, all that can take months or years to finish. If your dissertation committee says your study is too broad, believe them and adjust accordingly if you want to graduate with your cohort.

A thesis statement is a sentence or two in the beginning of a paper that poses a research question, offers a hypothesis, presents supporting evidence, acknowledges counterarguments and draws conclusions. Writing a thesis statement is difficult for most people. A critical first step is identifying a topic with which you will not get bored over the course of several months or the next few years. Practice the steps of thesis writing until you get a thesis statement that sounds doable.

​ Example: ​

• ​ Topic ​: Standardized tests in the schools
• ​ Your opinion on topic ​: Standardized tests narrow the curriculum
• ​ Supporting argument ​: Art education budgets are being slashed to fund STEM programs
• ​ Supporting argument: ​ Children no longer receive a well-rounded education
• ​ Counterargument ​: Schools can still offer art
• ​ Thesis statement ​: Even though schools can still offer art, standardized tests have narrowed the curriculum as evidenced by art education budgets being slashed to fund STEM programs, thus depriving students of a well-rounded education.

You may want to choose a topic related to your career goals to help you develop skills and competencies that will be advantageous in a job search. Conduct exploratory research to see how much has been written about your topic already. Ask faculty for suggestions. Avoid longitudinal studies unless you are sure you can collect and analyze data without having to extend your intended graduation date.

When crafting a thesis statement, you must honestly ask yourself if your research findings would matter to anyone. Your research will be dismissed or even ridiculed if professionals in your field do not care what your findings might show. The introduction of your paper should pique the reader’s curiosity and reinforce a desire to read your thesis paper in its entirety. Place the thesis statement in the last paragraph of the introduction. People expect to find it there.

Generally, students in a master’s degree program write a paper called a thesis, whereas doctoral students write a dissertation. Master’s degree programs and thesis papers are typically shorter than Ph.D. programs and doctoral dissertations. Expected length varies considerably by program and school. Some schools call the dissertation a doctoral thesis.

Both types of papers entail fretting over a topic, reading tons of articles, proper attribution of sources, seemingly endless writing and thesis committee oversight. The purpose of the thesis is to help students develop skills, expertise and a reputation in their field. When writing a master’s thesis, graduate students analyze and synthesize journal articles, books, interviews, government reports and copious amounts of data. Students may also be required to present and defend their findings to peers and faculty.

Students hoping to teach, research or work in public policy enroll in a combined master's/Ph.D. program or directly enter a doctoral program after finishing their master’s degree. The dissertation probes deeper into the subject matter. The goal of the dissertation is to add new information to what is currently known in the literature about the topic. Evidence of scholarship and original thinking must be demonstrated orally and in writing to the student’s academic department before the dissertation committee will sign off on the document.

The topic of either paper should be intriguing to you and other academic types in your field. Look for any gaps in the literature that your research might help close. Manage expectations and buffer perfectionism knowing that dissertations do not morph into bestsellers. Even if you dedicate your paper to your parents, don’t expect them to read past the introduction of a paper on enterotoxin-positive spores, for instance. On the other hand, peers may be fascinated by your claims, choice of methodology, statistical computation and conclusions.

Choosing an unwieldy topic can indefinitely prolong thesis completion. Many doctoral students finish their courses but not their dissertation and are considered ABD, which stands for “all but dissertation.” Also, use your best judgment when tapping sources. Consider the implications and inferences of an author’s claim. Separate fact from opinion, especially when writing about a topic with emotional hot buttons.

Research terminology can be a little confusing because certain words like "thesis" can be used to describe a master’s-level thesis paper or a doctoral dissertation. Further complicating matters, there are different types of theses. Most often, the word "thesis" refers to a long research paper organized around a central idea. Supporting research can include everything from lab results, statistical data and predictive models to field notes, photographs and diaries, depending on the type of observation used in your study. A research thesis paper offers a critical assessment and interpretation of quantitative or qualitative sources. Guidelines for the length of the paper may be specified in a graduate student handbook or obtained from faculty.

Some programs offer graduate students the option of producing an artistic thesis instead of the more traditional research paper in partial fulfillment of a Master of Arts degree. The artistic thesis is comprised of a creative work such as a student-produced film, screenplay, novel, poems, paintings or dance performance. Students may also be required to submit a research essay along with their creative work explaining the genre or their technique.

Another type of thesis is the project thesis, also called a capstone project. Graduate programs that focus on applied research frequently offer this alternative for students who prefer experiential learning in real-world settings. Students working on a project thesis undertake research and then apply theory to practice with the goal of innovative problem solving. For instance, students in social work, education or public administration could design and launch a pilot program that takes a different approach to addressing community issues like homelessness and food insecurity. Graduate students may also be required to submit a thesis essay grounded in research that describes their project, goals, outcomes and effectiveness.

Related Articles

How to Develop Your Own PhD Program

Why Pursue a Doctorate Degree?

How to Write a Research Proposal for Domestic Violence

The Purpose of a PhD

Does an MBA Require a Thesis?

Ethical Considerations in Writing a Dissertation

Path to a PhD

How to Write Research Papers From Start to Finish

• Harvard University Harvard College Writing Center: Developing A Thesis
• Online PhD Programs: What Is a PhD Thesis?

Dr. Mary Dowd is a dean of students whose job includes student conduct, leading the behavioral consultation team, crisis response, retention and the working with the veterans resource center. She enjoys helping parents and students solve problems through advising, teaching and writing online articles that appear on many sites. Dr. Dowd also contributes to scholarly books and journal articles.

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Mathematics > Combinatorics

Title: combinatorics of complex maximal determinant matrices.

Abstract: This doctoral thesis covers several topics related to the construction and study of maximal determinant matrices with complex entries. The first three chapters are devoted to number-theoretic tools to prove the non-solvability of Gram matrix equations over certain fields, with a focus on combinatorial applications. Chapter 4 gives a survey on Butson-type Hadamard matrices, and shows an improved lower bound on primes $p$ for the existence of $BH(12p, p)$ matrices. Chapter 5 contains the main contributions of the thesis, where the maximal determinant problem for matrices over the m-th roots of unity is discussed, and where new upper and lower bounds, as well as constructions at small orders, are given. Chapter 6 studies maximal determinant matrices over association schemes. Chapter 7 gives an application of design theory to privacy in communications, and it is connected to the rest of the thesis by the use of the theory of quadratic forms.

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[Mamba-Survey-2024] Paper list for State-Space-Model/Mamba and it's Applications

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Paper list for State-Space-Model and its Applications

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• [2024.04.15] We release the first version of the survey on state space model [ arXiv ]

Thesis & Surveys

Modeling sequences with structured state spaces , Responsibility: Albert Gu, Publication: [Stanford, California] : [Stanford University], 2023 [ Thesis (330 pages) ] [ PDF ]

State Space Model for New-Generation Network Alternative to Transformers: A Survey , Xiao Wang, Shiao Wang, Yuhe Ding, Yuehang Li, Wentao Wu, Yao Rong, Weizhe Kong, Ju Huang, Shihao Li, Haoxiang Yang, Ziwen Wang, Bo Jiang, Chenglong Li, Yaowei Wang, Yonghong Tian, Jin Tang, 2024 [ PDF ] [ arXiv ]

State-space Decomposition Model for Video Prediction Considering Long-term Motion Trend , Fei Cui, Jiaojiao Fang, Xiaojiang Wu, Zelong Lai, Mengke Yang, Menghan Jia, Guizhong Liu [ Paper ]

Text-controlled Motion Mamba: Text-Instructed Temporal Grounding of Human Motion , Xinghan Wang, Zixi Kang, Yadong Mu, arXiv:2404.11375 [ Paper ]

HumMUSS: Human Motion Understanding using State Space Models , Arnab Kumar Mondal, Stefano Alletto, Denis Tome, CVPR 2024, arXiv:2404.10880 [ Paper ]

HSIDMamba: Exploring Bidirectional State-Space Models for Hyperspectral Denoising , Yang Liu, Jiahua Xiao, Yu Guo, Peilin Jiang, Haiwei Yang, Fei Wang [ Paper ]

FusionMamba: Dynamic Feature Enhancement for Multimodal Image Fusion with Mamba , Xinyu Xie, Yawen Cui, Chio-In Ieong, Tao Tan, Xiaozhi Zhang, Xubin Zheng, Zitong Yu [ Paper ] [ Code ]

FreqMamba: Viewing Mamba from a Frequency Perspective for Image Deraining , Zou Zhen, Yu Hu, Zhao Feng [ Paper ]

A Novel State Space Model with Local Enhancement and State Sharing for Image Fusion , Zihan Cao, Xiao Wu, Liang-Jian Deng, Yu Zhong [ Paper ]

Fusion-Mamba for Cross-modality Object Detection , arXiv:2404.09146, Wenhao Dong, Haodong Zhu, Shaohui Lin, Xiaoyan Luo, Yunhang Shen, Xuhui Liu, Juan Zhang, Guodong Guo, Baochang Zhang [ Paper ]

" Linear recurrent units for sequential recommendation. " Yue, Zhenrui, et al. Proceedings of the 17th ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining. 2024. [ Paper ] [ Code ]

State-Space Modeling of Shape-constrained Functional Time Series , Daichi Hiraki, Yasuyuki Hamura, Kaoru Irie, Shonosuke Sugasawa, arXiv:2404.07586 [ Paper ]

HGRN2: Gated Linear RNNs with State Expansion , Zhen Qin, Songlin Yang, Weixuan Sun, Xuyang Shen, Dong Li, Weigao Sun, Yiran Zhong, arXiv:2404.07904 [ Paper ] [ Code ]

MambaDFuse: A Mamba-based Dual-phase Model for Multi-modality Image Fusion , Zhe Li, Haiwei Pan, Kejia Zhang, Yuhua Wang, Fengming Yu, arXiv:2404.08406 [ Paper ]

SpectralMamba: Efficient Mamba for Hyperspectral Image Classification , Jing Yao, Danfeng Hong, Chenyu Li, Jocelyn Chanussot, arXiv:2404.08489 [ Paper ] [ Code ]

SurvMamba: State Space Model with Multi-grained Multi-modal Interaction for Survival Prediction , Ying Chen, Jiajing Xie, Yuxiang Lin, Yuhang Song, Wenxian Yang, Rongshan Yu, arXiv:2404.08027 [ Paper ]

[2024_143] FusionMamba: Efficient Image Fusion with State Space Model , Siran Peng, Xiangyu Zhu, Haoyu Deng, Zhen Lei, Liang-Jian Deng [ Paper ]

[2024_142] DGMamba: Domain Generalization via Generalized State Space Model , Shaocong Long, Qianyu Zhou, Xiangtai Li, Xuequan Lu, Chenhao Ying, Yuan Luo, Lizhuang Ma, Shuicheng Yan [ Paper ]

[2024_141] ViM-UNet: Vision Mamba for Biomedical Segmentation , Anwai Archit, Constantin Pape [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_140] Simba: Mamba augmented U-ShiftGCN for Skeletal Action Recognition in Videos , Soumyabrata Chaudhuri, Saumik Bhattacharya [ Paper ]

[2024_139] MambaAD: Exploring State Space Models for Multi-class Unsupervised Anomaly Detection , Haoyang He, Yuhu Bai, Jiangning Zhang, Qingdong He, Hongxu Chen, Zhenye Gan, Chengjie Wang, Xiangtai Li, Guanzhong Tian, Lei Xie [ Paper ]

[2024_138] 3DMambaComplete: Exploring Structured State Space Model for Point Cloud Completion , Yixuan Li, Weidong Yang, Ben Fei [ Paper ]

[2024_137] RhythmMamba: Fast Remote Physiological Measurement with Arbitrary Length Videos , Bochao Zou, Zizheng Guo, Xiaocheng Hu, Huimin Ma [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_136] VMambaMorph: a Visual Mamba-based Framework with Cross-Scan Module for Deformable 3D Image Registration , Ziyang Wang, Jian-Qing Zheng, Chao Ma, Tao Guo [ Paper ]

[2024_135] 3DMambaIPF: A State Space Model for Iterative Point Cloud Filtering via Differentiable Rendering , Qingyuan Zhou, Weidong Yang, Ben Fei, Jingyi Xu, Rui Zhang, Keyi Liu, Yeqi Luo, Ying He [ Paper ]

[2024_134] Sigma: Siamese Mamba Network for Multi-Modal Semantic Segmentation , Zifu Wan, Yuhao Wang, Silong Yong, Pingping Zhang, Simon Stepputtis, Katia Sycara, Yaqi Xie [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_133] xT: Nested Tokenization for Larger Context in Large Images , Ritwik Gupta, Shufan Li, Tyler Zhu, Jitendra Malik, Trevor Darrell, Karttikeya Mangalam [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_132] Locating and Editing Factual Associations in Mamba , Arnab Sen Sharma, David Atkinson, David Bau [ Paper ]

[2024_131] InsectMamba: Insect Pest Classification with State Space Model , Qianning Wang, Chenglin Wang, Zhixin Lai, Yucheng Zhou [ Paper ]

[2024_130] ChangeMamba: Remote Sensing Change Detection with Spatio-Temporal State Space Model , Hongruixuan Chen, Jian Song, Chengxi Han, Junshi Xia, Naoto Yokoya [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_129] RS-Mamba for Large Remote Sensing Image Dense Prediction , Sijie Zhao, Hao Chen, Xueliang Zhang, Pengfeng Xiao, Lei Bai, Wanli Ouyang [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_128] RS3Mamba: Visual State Space Model for Remote Sensing Images Semantic Segmentation , Xianping Ma, Xiaokang Zhang, Man-On Pun [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_127] SPMamba: State-space model is all you need in speech separation , Kai Li, Guo Chen [ Paper ]

[2024_126] On the reduction of Linear Parameter-Varying State-Space models , E. Javier Olucha, Bogoljub Terzin, Amritam Das, Roland Tóth [ Paper ]

[2024_125] Samba: Semantic Segmentation of Remotely Sensed Images with State Space Model , Qinfeng Zhu, Yuanzhi Cai, Yuan Fang, Yihan Yang, Cheng Chen, Lei Fan, Anh Nguyen [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_124] T-Mamba: Frequency-Enhanced Gated Long-Range Dependency for Tooth 3D CBCT Segmentation , Jing Hao, Lei He, Kuo Feng Hung [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_123] Decision Mamba: Reinforcement Learning via Sequence Modeling with Selective State Spaces , Toshihiro Ota [ Paper ]

[2024_122] RankMamba, Benchmarking Mamba's Document Ranking Performance in the Era of Transformers , Zhichao Xu [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_121] SpikeMba: Multi-Modal Spiking Saliency Mamba for Temporal Video Grounding , Wenrui Li, Xiaopeng Hong, Xiaopeng Fan [ Paper ]

[2024_120] HSIMamba: Hyperpsectral Imaging Efficient Feature Learning with Bidirectional State Space for Classification , Judy X Yang, Jun Zhou, Jing Wang, Hui Tian, Alan Wee Chung Liew [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_119] HARMamba: Efficient Wearable Sensor Human Activity Recognition Based on Bidirectional Selective SSM , Shuangjian Li, Tao Zhu, Furong Duan, Liming Chen, Huansheng Ning, Yaping Wan [ Paper ]

[2024_118] UltraLight VM-UNet: Parallel Vision Mamba Significantly Reduces Parameters for Skin Lesion Segmentation , Renkai Wu, Yinghao Liu, Pengchen Liang, Qing Chang [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_117] MambaMixer: Efficient Selective State Space Models with Dual Token and Channel Selection , Ali Behrouz, Michele Santacatterina, Ramin Zabih [ Paper ]

[2024_116] Dual-path Mamba: Short and Long-term Bidirectional Selective Structured State Space Models for Speech Separation , Xilin Jiang, Cong Han, Nima Mesgarani [ Paper ]

[2024_115] STG-Mamba: Spatial-Temporal Graph Learning via Selective State Space Model , Lincan Li, Hanchen Wang, Wenjie Zhang, Adelle Coster [ Paper ]

[2024_114] Cobra: Extending Mamba to Multi-Modal Large Language Model for Efficient Inference , Han Zhao, Min Zhang, Wei Zhao, Pengxiang Ding, Siteng Huang, Donglin Wang [ Paper ]

[2024_113] Music to Dance as Language Translation using Sequence Models , André Correia, Luís A. Alexandre [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_112] CMViM: Contrastive Masked Vim Autoencoder for 3D Multi-modal Representation Learning for AD classification , Guangqian Yang, Kangrui Du, Zhihan Yang, Ye Du, Yongping Zheng, Shujun Wang [ Paper ]

[2024_111] Proprioception Is All You Need: Terrain Classification for Boreal Forests , Damien LaRocque, William Guimont-Martin, David-Alexandre Duclos, Philippe Giguère, François Pomerleau [ Paper ]

[2024_110] ReMamber: Referring Image Segmentation with Mamba Twister , Yuhuan Yang, Chaofan Ma, Jiangchao Yao, Zhun Zhong, Ya Zhang, Yanfeng Wang [ Paper ]

[2024_109] Mechanistic Design and Scaling of Hybrid Architectures , Michael Poli, Armin W Thomas, Eric Nguyen, Pragaash Ponnusamy, Björn Deiseroth, Kristian Kersting, Taiji Suzuki, Brian Hie, Stefano Ermon, Christopher Ré, Ce Zhang, Stefano Massaroli [ Paper ]

[2024_108] Model order reduction of deep structured state-space models: A system-theoretic approach , Marco Forgione, Manas Mejari, Dario Piga

[2024_107] Modeling Analog Dynamic Range Compressors using Deep Learning and State-space Models , Hanzhi Yin, Gang Cheng, Christian J. Steinmetz, Ruibin Yuan, Richard M. Stern, Roger B. Dannenberg [ Paper ]

[2024_106] Uncovering Selective State Space Model's Capabilities in Lifelong Sequential Recommendation , Jiyuan Yang, Yuanzi Li, Jingyu Zhao, Hanbing Wang, Muyang Ma, Jun Ma, Zhaochun Ren, Mengqi Zhang, Xin Xin, Zhumin Chen, Pengjie Ren [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_105] State Space Models as Foundation Models: A Control Theoretic Overview , Carmen Amo Alonso, Jerome Sieber, Melanie N. Zeilinger [ Paper ]

[2024_104] Serpent: Scalable and Efficient Image Restoration via Multi-scale Structured State Space Models , Mohammad Shahab Sepehri, Zalan Fabian, Mahdi Soltanolkotabi [ Paper ]

[2024_103] Jamba: A Hybrid Transformer-Mamba Language Model , Opher Lieber, Barak Lenz, Hofit Bata, Gal Cohen, Jhonathan Osin, Itay Dalmedigos, Erez Safahi, Shaked Meirom, Yonatan Belinkov, Shai Shalev-Shwartz, Omri Abend, Raz Alon, Tomer Asida, Amir Bergman, Roman Glozman, Michael Gokhman, Avashalom Manevich, Nir Ratner, Noam Rozen, Erez Shwartz, Mor Zusman, Yoav Shoham [ Paper ] [ Website ] [ Huggingface ]

[2024_102] Gamba: Marry Gaussian Splatting with Mamba for single view 3D reconstruction , Qiuhong Shen, Xuanyu Yi, Zike Wu, Pan Zhou, Hanwang Zhang, Shuicheng Yan, Xinchao Wang [ Paper ]

[2024_101] RSMamba: Remote Sensing Image Classification with State Space Model , [ Project ] [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_100] Rotate to Scan: UNet-like Mamba with Triplet SSM Module for Medical Image Segmentation , Hao Tang, Lianglun Cheng, Guoheng Huang, Zhengguang Tan, Junhao Lu, Kaihong Wu [ Paper ]

[2024_099] PlainMamba: Improving Non-Hierarchical Mamba in Visual Recognition , Chenhongyi Yang, Zehui Chen, Miguel Espinosa, Linus Ericsson, Zhenyu Wang, Jiaming Liu, Elliot J. Crowley [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_098] Integrating Mamba Sequence Model and Hierarchical Upsampling Network for Accurate Semantic Segmentation of Multiple Sclerosis Legion , Kazi Shahriar Sanjid, Md. Tanzim Hossain, Md. Shakib Shahariar Junayed, Dr. Mohammad Monir Uddin [ Paper ]

[2024_097] VMRNN: Integrating Vision Mamba and LSTM for Efficient and Accurate Spatiotemporal Forecasting , Yujin Tang, Peijie Dong, Zhenheng Tang, Xiaowen Chu, Junwei Liang [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_096] SiMBA: Simplified Mamba-Based Architecture for Vision and Multivariate Time series , Badri N. Patro, Vijay S. Agneeswaran [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_095] Repeat After Me: Transformers are Better than State Space Models at Copying , Samy Jelassi, David Brandfonbrener, Sham M. Kakade, Eran Malach [ Paper ]

[2024_094] H-vmunet: High-order Vision Mamba UNet for Medical Image Segmentation , Renkai Wu, Yinghao Liu, Pengchen Liang, Qing Chang [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_093] VL-Mamba: Exploring State Space Models for Multimodal Learning , Yanyuan Qiao, Zheng Yu, Longteng Guo, Sihan Chen, Zijia Zhao, Mingzhen Sun, Qi Wu, Jing Liu [ Paper ] [ Project ] [ Code ]

[2024_092] ProMamba: Prompt-Mamba for polyp segmentation , Jianhao Xie, Ruofan Liao, Ziang Zhang, Sida Yi, Yuesheng Zhu, Guibo Luo [ Paper ]

[2024_091] ZigMa: Zigzag Mamba Diffusion Model , Vincent Tao Hu, Stefan Andreas Baumann, Ming Gui, Olga Grebenkova, Pingchuan Ma, Johannes Fischer, Bjorn Ommer [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_090] On the low-shot transferability of [V]-Mamba , Diganta Misra, Jay Gala, Antonio Orvieto [ Paper ]

[2024_089] Is Mamba Effective for Time Series Forecasting? Zihan Wang, Fanheng Kong, Shi Feng, Ming Wang, Han Zhao, Daling Wang, Yifei Zhang [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_088] VmambaIR: Visual State Space Model for Image Restoration , Yuan Shi, Bin Xia, Xiaoyu Jin, Xing Wang, Tianyu Zhao, Xin Xia, Xuefeng Xiao, Wenming Yang [ Paper ]

[2024_087] Understanding Robustness of Visual State Space Models for Image Classification , Chengbin Du, Yanxi Li, Chang Xu [ Paper ]

[2024_086] Regularization-Based Efficient Continual Learning in Deep State-Space Models , Yuanhang Zhang, Zhidi Lin, Yiyong Sun, Feng Yin, Carsten Fritsche [ Paper ]

[2024_085] TimeMachine: A Time Series is Worth 4 Mambas for Long-term Forecasting , Md Atik Ahamed, Qiang Cheng [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_084] EfficientVMamba: Atrous Selective Scan for Light Weight Visual Mamba , Xiaohuan Pei, Tao Huang, Chang Xu [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_083] MambaTalk: Efficient Holistic Gesture Synthesis with Selective State Space Models , Zunnan Xu, Yukang Lin, Haonan Han, Sicheng Yang, Ronghui Li, Yachao Zhang, Xiu Li [ Paper ]

[2024_082] LocalMamba: Visual State Space Model with Windowed Selective Scan , Tao Huang, Xiaohuan Pei, Shan You, Fei Wang, Chen Qian, Chang Xu [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_081] VM-UNET-V2 Rethinking Vision Mamba UNet for Medical Image Segmentation , Mingya Zhang, Yue Yu, Limei Gu, Tingsheng Lin, Xianping Tao [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_080] Video Mamba Suite: State Space Model as a Versatile Alternative for Video Understanding , Guo Chen, Yifei Huang, Jilan Xu, Baoqi Pei, Zhe Chen, Zhiqi Li, Jiahao Wang, Kunchang Li, Tong Lu, Limin Wang [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_079] Hierarchical State Space Models for Continuous Sequence-to-Sequence Modeling , Raunaq Bhirangi, Chenyu Wang, Venkatesh Pattabiraman, Carmel Majidi, Abhinav Gupta, Tess Hellebrekers, Lerrel Pinto [ Paper ]

[2024_078] MambaStock: Selective state space model for stock prediction , Zhuangwei Shi [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_077] Simple linear attention language models balance the recall-throughput tradeoff , Simran Arora, Sabri Eyuboglu, Michael Zhang, Aman Timalsina, Silas Alberti, Dylan Zinsley, James Zou, Atri Rudra, Christopher Ré [ Paper ]

[2024_076] LightM-UNet: Mamba Assists in Lightweight UNet for Medical Image Segmentation , Weibin Liao, Yinghao Zhu, Xinyuan Wang, Chengwei Pan, Yasha Wang, Liantao Ma [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_075] Motion-Guided Dual-Camera Tracker for Low-Cost Skill Evaluation of Gastric Endoscopy , Yuelin Zhang, Wanquan Yan, Kim Yan, Chun Ping Lam, Yufu Qiu, Pengyu Zheng, Raymond Shing-Yan Tang, Shing Shin Cheng [ Paper ]

[2024_074] Caduceus: Bi-Directional Equivariant Long-Range DNA Sequence Modeling , Yair Schiff, Chia-Hsiang Kao, Aaron Gokaslan, Tri Dao, Albert Gu, Volodymyr Kuleshov [ Paper ]

[2024_073] MD-Dose: A Diffusion Model based on the Mamba for Radiotherapy Dose Prediction , Linjie Fu, Xia Li, Xiuding Cai, Yingkai Wang, Xueyao Wang, Yali Shen, Yu Yao [ Paper ]

[2024_072] Activating Wider Areas in Image Super-Resolution , Cheng Cheng, Hang Wang, Hongbin Sun [ Paper ]

[2024_071] Multichannel Long-Term Streaming Neural Speech Enhancement for Static and Moving Speakers , Changsheng Quan, Xiaofei Li [ Paper ]

[2024_070] A multi-cohort study on prediction of acute brain dysfunction states using selective state space models , Brandon Silva, Miguel Contreras, Sabyasachi Bandyopadhyay, Yuanfang Ren, Ziyuan Guan, Jeremy Balch, Kia Khezeli, Tezcan Ozrazgat Baslanti, Ben Shickel, Azra Bihorac, Parisa Rashidi [ Paper ]

[2024_069] The pitfalls of next-token prediction , Gregor Bachmann, Vaishnavh Nagarajan [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_068] Large Window-based Mamba UNet for Medical Image Segmentation: Beyond Convolution and Self-attention , Jinhong Wang, Jintai Chen, Danny Chen, Jian Wu [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_067] Motion Mamba: Efficient and Long Sequence Motion Generation with Hierarchical and Bidirectional Selective SSM , Zeyu Zhang, Akide Liu, Ian Reid, Richard Hartley, Bohan Zhuang, Hao Tang [ Paper ] [ Project ] [ Code ]

[2024_066] ClinicalMamba: A Generative Clinical Language Model on Longitudinal Clinical Notes , Zhichao Yang, Avijit Mitra, Sunjae Kwon, Hong Yu [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_065] MambaMIL: Enhancing Long Sequence Modeling with Sequence Reordering in Computational Pathology , Shu Yang, Yihui Wang, Hao Chen [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_064] Point Mamba: A Novel Point Cloud Backbone Based on State Space Model with Octree-Based Ordering Strategy , Jiuming Liu, Ruiji Yu, Yian Wang, Yu Zheng, Tianchen Deng, Weicai Ye, Hesheng Wang [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_063] VideoMamba: State Space Model for Efficient Video Understanding , Kunchang Li, Xinhao Li, Yi Wang, Yinan He, Yali Wang, Limin Wang, Yu Qiao [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_062] MamMIL: Multiple Instance Learning for Whole Slide Images with State Space Models , Zijie Fang, Yifeng Wang, Zhi Wang, Jian Zhang, Xiangyang Ji, Yongbing Zhang [ Paper ]

[2024_061] Video Diffusion State Space Models , Zhengcong Fei, Mingyuan Fan, Changqian Yu, Jusnshi Huang, [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_060] Mamba4Rec: Towards Efficient Sequential Recommendation with Selective State Space Models , Chengkai Liu, Jianghao Lin, Jianling Wang, Hanzhou Liu, James Caverlee [ Paper ]

[2024_059] MedMamba: Vision Mamba for Medical Image Classification , Yubiao Yue, Zhenzhang Li [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_058] Griffin: Mixing Gated Linear Recurrences with Local Attention for Efficient Language Models , Soham De, Samuel L. Smith, Anushan Fernando, Aleksandar Botev, George Cristian-Muraru, Albert Gu, Ruba Haroun, Leonard Berrada, Yutian Chen, Srivatsan Srinivasan, Guillaume Desjardins, Arnaud Doucet, David Budden, Yee Whye Teh, Razvan Pascanu, Nando De Freitas, Caglar Gulcehre [ Paper ]

[2024_057] Gated Linear Attention Transformers with Hardware-Efficient Training , Songlin Yang, Bailin Wang, Yikang Shen, Rameswar Panda, Yoon Kim [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_056] DenseMamba: State Space Models with Dense Hidden Connection for Efficient Large Language Models , [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_055] The Hidden Attention of Mamba Models , [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_054] MiM-ISTD: Mamba-in-Mamba for Efficient Infrared Small Target Detection , Tianxiang Chen, Zhentao Tan, Tao Gong, Qi Chu, Yue Wu, Bin Liu, Jieping Ye, Nenghai Yu [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_053] Point Could Mamba: Point Cloud Learning via State Space Model , Tao Zhang, Xiangtai Li, Haobo Yuan, Shunping Ji, Shuicheng Yan [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_052] Res-VMamba: Fine-Grained Food Category Visual Classification Using Selective State Space Models with Deep Residual Learning , Chi-Sheng Chen, Guan-Ying Chen, Dong Zhou, Di Jiang, Dai-Shi Chen [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_051] MambaMIR: An Arbitrary-Masked Mamba for Joint Medical Image Reconstruction and Uncertainty Estimation , Jiahao Huang, Liutao Yang, Fanwen Wang, Yinzhe Wu, Yang Nan, Angelica I. Aviles-Rivero, Carola-Bibiane Schönlieb, Daoqiang Zhang, Guang Yang [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_050] MambaIR: A Simple Baseline for Image Restoration with State-Space Model , Hang Guo, Jinmin Li, Tao Dai, Zhihao Ouyang, Xudong Ren, Shu-Tao Xia [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_049] State Space Models for Event Cameras , Nikola Zubić, Mathias Gehrig, Davide Scaramuzza [ Paper ]

[2024_048][ICLR 2024] FlashFFTConv: Efficient Convolutions for Long Sequences with Tensor Cores , Daniel Y Fu, Hermann Kumbong, Eric Nguyen, Christopher Re [ Paper ]

[2024_047] Variational quantization for state space models , Etienne David, Jean Bellot, Sylvain Le Corff [ Paper ]

[2024_046] Efficient Long Sequence Modeling via State Space Augmented Transformer , Simiao Zuo, Xiaodong Liu, Jian Jiao, Denis X Charles, Eren Manavoglu, Tuo Zhao, Jianfeng Gao [ Paper ]

[2024_045][ICLR 2024] Robustifying State-space Models for Long Sequences via Approximate Diagonalization , Annan Yu, Arnur Nigmetov, Dmitriy Morozov, Michael W. Mahoney, N. Benjamin Erichson [ Paper ]

[2024_044] From generalization analysis to optimization designs for state space models , Fusheng Liu, Qianxiao Li [ Paper ]

[2024_043] A 2-Dimensional State Space Layer for Spatial Inductive Bias , Ethan Baron, Itamar Zimerman, Lior Wolf [ Paper ]

[2024_042][ICLR 2024] Hieros: Hierarchical Imagination on Structured State Space Sequence World Models , Paul Mattes, Rainer Schlosser, Ralf Herbrich [ Paper ]

[2024_041] S4++: Elevating Long Sequence Modeling with State Memory Reply , [ Paper ]

[2024_040][Rejected by ICLR 2024] Mamba: Linear-Time Sequence Modeling with Selective State Spaces , Albert Gu, Tri Dao [ Paper ] [ Mamba: The Hard Way ] [ annotated-mamba ]

[2024_039][ICLR 2024] Gated recurrent neural networks discover attention , Nicolas Zucchet, Seijin Kobayashi, Yassir Akram, Johannes Von Oswald, Maxime Larcher, Angelika Steger, Joao Sacramento [ Paper ]

[2024_038][ICLR 2024] GateLoop: Fully Data-Controlled Linear Recurrence for Sequence Modeling , Tobias Katsch [ Paper ]

[2024_037][ICLR 2024] Never Train from Scratch: Fair Comparison of Long-Sequence Models Requires Data-Driven Priors , Ido Amos, Jonathan Berant, Ankit Gupta [ Paper ]

[2024_036] [ICLR 2024] Mastering Memory Tasks with World Models , Mohammad Reza Samsami, Artem Zholus, Janarthanan Rajendran, Sarath Chandar [ Paper ]

[2024_035] Spectral State Space Models , Naman Agarwal, Daniel Suo, Xinyi Chen, Elad Hazan [ Paper ]

[2024_034] Graph Mamba: Towards Learning on Graphs with State Space Models , Ali Behrouz, Farnoosh Hashemi [ Paper ]

[2024_033] Can Mamba Learn How to Learn? A Comparative Study on In-Context Learning Tasks , Jongho Park, Jaeseung Park, Zheyang Xiong, Nayoung Lee, Jaewoong Cho, Samet Oymak, Kangwook Lee, Dimitris Papailiopoulos [ Paper ]

[2024_032] Is Mamba Capable of In-Context Learning? Riccardo Grazzi, Julien Siems, Simon Schrodi, Thomas Brox, Frank Hutter [ Paper ]

[2024_031] LOCOST: State-Space Models for Long Document Abstractive Summarization , Florian Le Bronnec, Song Duong, Mathieu Ravaut, Alexandre Allauzen, Nancy F. Chen, Vincent Guigue, Alberto Lumbreras, Laure Soulier, Patrick Gallinari [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_030] RWKV-TS: Beyond Traditional Recurrent Neural Network for Time Series Tasks , Haowen Hou, F. Richard Yu [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_029] BlackMamba: Mixture of Experts for State-Space Models , Quentin Anthony, Yury Tokpanov, Paolo Glorioso, Beren Millidge [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_028] Recurrent Distance Filtering for Graph Representation Learning , Yuhui Ding, Antonio Orvieto, Bobby He, Thomas Hofmann [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_027] SSM Meets Video Diffusion Models: Efficient Video Generation with Structured State Spaces , Yuta Oshima, Shohei Taniguchi, Masahiro Suzuki, Yutaka Matsuo [ Paper ]

[2024_026] Pan-Mamba: Effective pan-sharpening with State Space Model , Xuanhua He, Ke Cao, Keyu Yan, Rui Li, Chengjun Xie, Jie Zhang, Man Zhou [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_025] Weak-Mamba-UNet: Visual Mamba Makes CNN and ViT Work Better for Scribble-based Medical Image Segmentation , Ziyang Wang, Chao Ma [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_024] PointMamba: A Simple State Space Model for Point Cloud Analysis , Dingkang Liang, Xin Zhou, Xinyu Wang, Xingkui Zhu, Wei Xu, Zhikang Zou, Xiaoqing Ye, Xiang Bai [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_023] P-Mamba: Marrying Perona Malik Diffusion with Mamba for Efficient Pediatric Echocardiographic Left Ventricular Segmentation , Zi Ye, Tianxiang Chen [ Paper ]

[2024_022] Semi-Mamba-UNet: Pixel-Level Contrastive Cross-Supervised Visual Mamba-based UNet for Semi-Supervised Medical Image Segmentation , Ziyang Wang, Chao Ma [ Paper ]

[2024_021] FD-Vision Mamba for Endoscopic Exposure Correction , Zhuoran Zheng, Jun Zhang, [ Paper ]

[2024_020] Scalable Diffusion Models with State Space Backbone , Zhengcong Fei, Mingyuan Fan, Changqian Yu, Junshi Huang [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_019] Mamba-ND: Selective State Space Modeling for Multi-Dimensional Data , Shufan Li, Harkanwar Singh, Aditya Grover [ Paper ]

[2024_018] Mamba-UNet: UNet-Like Pure Visual Mamba for Medical Image Segmentation , Ziyang Wang, Jian-Qing Zheng, Yichi Zhang, Ge Cui, Lei Li [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_017] MambaTab: A Simple Yet Effective Approach for Handling Tabular Data , Md Atik Ahamed1, Qiang Cheng [ Paper ]

[2024_016] nnMamba: 3D Biomedical Image Segmentation, Classification and Landmark Detection with State Space Model , Haifan Gong, Luoyao Kang, Yitao Wang, Xiang Wan, Haofeng Li [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_015] U-shaped Vision Mamba for Single Image Dehazing , Zhuoran Zheng, Chen Wu [ Paper ]

[2024_014] Graph-Mamba: Towards Long-Range Graph Sequence Modeling with Selective State Spaces , Chloe Wang, Oleksii Tsepa, Jun Ma, Bo Wang [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_013] VM-UNet: Vision Mamba UNet for Medical Image Segmentation , Jiacheng Ruan, Suncheng Xiang [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_012] Swin-UMamba: Mamba-based UNet with ImageNet-based pretraining , Jiarun Liu, Hao Yang, Hong-Yu Zhou, Yan Xi, Lequan Yu, Yizhou Yu, Yong Liang, Guangming Shi, Shaoting Zhang, Hairong Zheng, Shanshan Wang [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_011] Ma, Jun, Feifei Li, and Bo Wang. " U-mamba: Enhancing long-range dependency for biomedical image segmentation ." arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.04722 (2024). [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_010] Vivim: a Video Vision Mamba for Medical Video Object Segmentation , Yijun Yang, Zhaohu Xing, and Lei Zhu [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_009] Wang, Junxiong, et al. " MambaByte: Token-free Selective State Space Model. " arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.13660 (2024). [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_008] MoE-Mamba: Efficient Selective State Space Models with Mixture of Experts. Pióro, M., Ciebiera, K., Król, K., Ludziejewski, J., & Jaszczur, S. (2024). arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.04081. [ Paper ]

[2024_007] [ICLR-2024] MASTERING MEMORY TASKS WITH WORLD MODELS [ Paper ]

[2024_006] MambaMorph: a Mamba-based Backbone with Contrastive Feature Learning for Deformable MR-CT Registration , Tao Guo, Yinuo Wang, and Cai Meng [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_005] SegMamba: Long-range Sequential Modeling Mamba For 3D Medical Image Segmentation , [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_003] Vision Mamba: Efficient Visual Representation Learning with Bidirectional State Space Model , Lianghui Zhu1∗, Bencheng Liao1∗, Qian Zhang2, Xinlong Wang3, Wenyu Liu1, Xinggang Wang [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_002] VMamba: Visual State Space Model , Yue Liu1,Yunjie Tian1,Yuzhong Zhao1, Hongtian Yu1, Lingxi Xie2, Yaowei Wang3, Qixiang Ye1, Yunfan Liu1 [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2024_001] Theoretical Foundations of Deep Selective State-Space Models , Nicola Muca Cirone, Antonio Orvieto, Benjamin Walker, Cristopher Salvi, Terry Lyons [ Paper ]

[2023_018] [CHIL 2023] Modeling Multivariate Biosignals With Graph Neural Networks and Structured State Space Models , Siyi Tang, Jared A. Dunnmon, Liangqiong Qu, Khaled K. Saab, Tina Baykaner, Christopher Lee-Messer, Daniel L. Rubin [ Paper ]

[2023_017] "StableSSM: Alleviating the Curse of Memory in State-space Models through Stable Reparameterization." Wang, Shida, and Qianxiao Li. arXiv preprint arXiv:2311.14495 (2023). [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2023_016] State-space models with layer-wise nonlinearity are universal approximators with exponential decaying memory , Shida Wang, Beichen Xue [ Paper ]

[2023_015] Spiking Structured State Space Model for Monaural Speech Enhancement . Du, Y., Liu, X., & Chua, Y. (2023). arXiv preprint arXiv:2309.03641. [ Paper ]

[2023_014] Mastering Diverse Domains through World Models , Danijar Hafner,12 Jurgis Pasukonis,1 Jimmy Ba,2 Timothy Lillicrap [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2023_013] Selective Structured State-Spaces for Long-Form Video Understanding , Jue Wang Wentao Zhu Pichao Wang Xiang Yu Linda Liu Mohamed Omar Raffay Hamid [ Paper ]

[2023_012] Mamba: Linear-Time Sequence Modeling with Selective State Spaces , Albert Gu*1and Tri Dao [ Paper ] [ Github ]

[2023_011] [NeurIPS 2023] Structured State Space Models for In-Context Reinforcement Learning , Chris Lu, Yannick Schroecker, Albert Gu, Emilio Parisotto, Jakob Foerster, Satinder Singh, Feryal Behbahani [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2023_010] Diffusion Models Without Attention , Jing Nathan Yan, Jiatao Gu, Alexander M. Rush [ Paper ]

[2023_009] Hierarchically Gated Recurrent Neural Network for Sequence Modeling , Zhen Qin, Songlin Yang, Yiran Zhong [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2023_008] Retentive Network: A Successor to Transformer for Large Language Models , Yutao Sun, Li Dong, Shaohan Huang, Shuming Ma, Yuqing Xia, Jilong Xue, Jianyong Wang, Furu Wei [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2023_007] Convolutional State Space Models for Long-Range Spatiotemporal Modeling , Jimmy T.H. Smith, Shalini De Mello, Jan Kautz, Scott W. Linderman, Wonmin Byeon [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2023_006] Laughing Hyena Distillery: Extracting Compact Recurrences From Convolutions , Stefano Massaroli, Michael Poli, Daniel Y. Fu, Hermann Kumbong, Rom N. Parnichkun, Aman Timalsina, David W. Romero, Quinn McIntyre, Beidi Chen, Atri Rudra, Ce Zhang, Christopher Re, Stefano Ermon, Yoshua Bengio [ Paper ]

[2023_005] Structured state-space models are deep Wiener models , Fabio Bonassi, Carl Andersson, Per Mattsson, Thomas B. Schön [ Paper ]

[2023_004] Zoology: Measuring and Improving Recall in Efficient Language Models , Simran Arora, Sabri Eyuboglu, Aman Timalsina, Isys Johnson, Michael Poli, James Zou, Atri Rudra, Christopher Ré [ Paper ]

[2023_003] [ICML 2023] Resurrecting Recurrent Neural Networks for Long Sequences , Antonio Orvieto · Samuel Smith · Albert Gu · Anushan Fernando · Caglar Gulcehre · Razvan Pascanu · Soham De [ Paper ]

[2023_002] Hyena Hierarchy: Towards Larger Convolutional Language Models , Michael Poli, Stefano Massaroli, Eric Nguyen, Daniel Y. Fu, Tri Dao, Stephen Baccus, Yoshua Bengio, Stefano Ermon, Christopher Ré [ Paper ]

[2023_001] [ICLR 2023] Simplified State Space Layers for Sequence Modeling , Jimmy T.H. Smith, Andrew Warrington, Scott Linderman [ Paper ]

[2022_009] [ECCV-2022] Long Movie Clip Classification with State-Space Video Models , Md Mohaiminul Islam, Gedas Bertasius [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2022_008] [NIPS-2022] "S4nd: Modeling images and videos as multidimensional signals with state spaces." Nguyen, Eric, et al. Advances in neural information processing systems 35 (2022): 2846-2861. [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2022_007] [Pre-training] Wang, J., Yan, J. N., Gu, A., & Rush, A. M. (2022). Pretraining without attention . arXiv preprint arXiv:2212.10544. [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2022_006] Long Range Language Modeling via Gated State Spaces , Harsh Mehta1∗ Ankit Gupta2 Ashok Cutkosky3 Behnam Neyshabur1 [ Paper ]

[2022_005] [ICML2022] It’s Raw! Audio Generation with State-Space Models , Karan Goel, Albert Gu, Chris Donahue, and Christopher R´e [ Paper ]

[2022_004] Diagonal State Spaces are as Effective as Structured State Spaces , Ankit Gupta˚Albert Gu Jonathan Berant [ Paper ]

[2022_003] How to Train Your HiPPO: State Space Models with Generalized Orthogonal Basis Projections , Albert Gu∗†, Isys Johnson∗‡, Aman Timalsina‡, Atri Rudra‡, and Christopher R´e† [ Paper ]

[2022_002] On the Parameterization and Initialization of Diagonal State Space Models , Albert Gu†, Ankit Gupta‡, Karan Goel†, and Christopher R´e† [ Paper ]

[2022_001] Efficiently Modeling Long Sequences with Structured State Spaces , Albert Gu, Karan Goel, Christopher Ré [ Paper ] [ The Annotated S4 ]

Year 2021 and Before

[2021_003] Efficiently Modeling Long Sequences with Structured State Spaces , Albert Gu, Karan Goel, and Christopher R´e [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2021_002] HiPPO: Recurrent Memory with Optimal Polynomial Projections , Albert Gu∗†, Tri Dao∗†, Stefano Ermon†, Atri Rudra‡, and Christopher Ré† [ Paper ] [ Code ]

[2021_001] Combining Recurrent, Convolutional, and Continuous-time Models with Linear State-Space Layers , Albert Gu†, Isys Johnson†, Karan Goel†, Khaled Saab†, Tri Dao†, Atri Rudra‡, and Christopher Ré† [ Paper ]

Related Models

Diffusion-RWKV: Scaling RWKV-Like Architectures for Diffusion Models , Zhengcong Fei, Mingyuan Fan, Changqian Yu, Debang Li, Junshi Huang [ Paper ]

"Retentive network: A successor to transformer for large language models." Sun, Yutao, et al. arXiv preprint arXiv:2307.08621 (2023). [ Paper ] [ Code ]

TLS-RWKV: Real-Time Online Action Detection with Temporal Label Smoothing . Zhu, Z., Shao, W. & Jiao, D. Neural Process Lett 56, 57 (2024). [ Paper ]

RRWKV: Capturing Long-range Dependencies in RWKV , Leilei Wang [ Paper ]

RWKV-TS: Beyond Traditional Recurrent Neural Network for Time Series Tasks , Haowen Hou, F. Richard Yu [ Paper ] [ Code ]

Vision-RWKV: Efficient and Scalable Visual Perception with RWKV-Like Architectures , Yuchen Duan, Weiyun Wang, Zhe Chen, Xizhou Zhu, Lewei Lu, Tong Lu, Yu Qiao, Hongsheng Li, Jifeng Dai, Wenhai Wang [ Paper ] [ Code ]

RWKV: Reinventing RNNs for the Transformer Era , Bo Peng, Eric Alcaide, Quentin Anthony, Alon Albalak, Samuel Arcadinho, Stella Biderman, Huanqi Cao, Xin Cheng, Michael Chung, Matteo Grella, Kranthi Kiran GV, Xuzheng He, Haowen Hou, Jiaju Lin, Przemyslaw Kazienko, Jan Kocon, Jiaming Kong, Bartlomiej Koptyra, Hayden Lau, Krishna Sri Ipsit Mantri, Ferdinand Mom, Atsushi Saito, Guangyu Song, Xiangru Tang, Bolun Wang, Johan S. Wind, Stanislaw Wozniak, Ruichong Zhang, Zhenyuan Zhang, Qihang Zhao, Peng Zhou, Qinghua Zhou, Jian Zhu, Rui-Jie Zhu [ Paper ]

Other Useful URLs

• [ awesome-ssm-ml ]
• [ Awesome-Mamba-Papers ]
• [ XiudingCai/Awesome-Mamba-Collection ]
• [ Awesome-state-space-models ] Collection of papers/repos on state-space models.
• [ mamba-minimal ] Simple, minimal implementation of the Mamba SSM in one file of PyTorch.
• [ mamba.py ] A simple and efficient Mamba implementation in PyTorch and MLX.
• [ Introduction to State Space Models (SSM) ]
• [ State-Space Modelling by Kevin Kotzé ]
• [ Structured State Spaces: Combining Continuous-Time, Recurrent, and Convolutional Models ]
• [ A Visual Guide to Mamba and State Space Models ---An Alternative to Transformers for Language Modeling ] FEB 19, 2024, by MAARTEN GROOTENDORST.
• [ Structured State Spaces: A Brief Survey of Related Models ] by Albert Gu, Karan Goel, Khaled Saab, and Chris Ré

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