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How to Restate a Thesis: Strategies & Examples
Academic Writing
8 min read

How to Restate a Thesis: Strategies & Examples

Learn how to restate a thesis statement and craft a powerful conclusion for any academic paper with StudyPro’s step-by-step guide, expert strategies, actionable tips, and examples.
How to Restate a Thesis
Written by
Catherine B.
Published on
Jun 3, 2025
Table of contents
Powerful introduction with a clearly stated thesis? Check. Arguments laid out one by one in the main body? Check. Evidence provided? Check. Strong conclusion paragraph? Eh…
Conclusions can come in many shapes and forms, but most academic papers require you to restate the thesis statement, along with your key arguments, to write it.
Don’t know how to do it without being repetitive or coming across as boring? You’ve come to the right place. Keep reading to find out how to restate a thesis, including:
  • 5 steps for restating your thesis statement
  • 5 strategies for writing a restated thesis without being repetitive
  • Tips for restating a thesis like a pro
  • Examples of restated thesis statements to help you nail yours
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What Is a Restated Thesis?

A restated thesis is simply a paraphrased version of your original thesis statement. You’ll need to include a reworded thesis in the concluding paragraph to reiterate your paper’s main idea for the readers.
You’ll have to restate thesis statements for concluding most pieces of academic writing: essays, research papers, term papers, and more. That’s why the ability to paraphrase your thesis statement is a versatile skill you should learn early on.
N.B. If you have a weak thesis statement in the introduction, even the most effective strategies for paraphrasing won’t help you. Consider refining your thesis statement with StudyPro!

Why Should You Restate the Thesis?

Don’t know where to start? Here’s your cheat sheet for restating your thesis statement:
Step
Description
Go back to your original statement
Re-read your original thesis, identify the key words in it, and get a full grasp of the main idea of your paper.
Revisit your key points
Sum up your main arguments and evidence in a sentence or two, either on paper or out loud. Ensure they support your central idea in a way that makes sense.
Paraphrase
Don’t restate your thesis statement verbatim in the conclusion. Instead, spice it up with different words (i.e., synonyms) and modified parts of speech (e.g., turn a verb into a noun).
Switch up the sentence structure
Communicate the same idea using a different sentence structure: you can change the order of clauses in the sentence or use a different voice.
Extend the scope
Instead of just repeating the thesis statement, recontextualize it as part of your central argument. To that end, broaden the perspective to include the main points from the text.

5 Best Strategies to Help You Restate Thesis Statements

Not sure what changing the sentence structure or voice means in practice? Here’s a detailed breakdown of the five most effective strategies for restating the thesis, along with examples to help you wrap your head around each one of them.
If these strategies don’t manage to help you out, check out our guide on how to use AI to write an essay, from the introduction to the conclusion with a restated thesis.

1. Use Synonyms

Sometimes, all you need to do to paraphrase your thesis statement is replace some words with their synonyms, all while preserving the original idea. You can do it manually by identifying core concepts and finding synonyms yourself or with the help of a thesaurus. Or, you can use AI paraphrasing tools if you’re stuck.
Original thesis statement
Reworded thesis
Generative AI can lead to new forms of misinformation that are hard to identify without machine-readable watermarks.
Generative AI has the potential to create new types of misinformation that are difficult to detect without the use of machine-readable watermarks.
Combating climate change requires international cooperation and investment
Addressing climate change necessitates global collaboration and financial commitment.
Airport security measures are a form of security theater and don’t prevent threats effectively.
Airport security protocols are an example of security theater and do not effectively mitigate threats.

2. Change the Sentence Structure

If the thesaurus alone doesn’t seem to do the job, you can always rephrase your thesis statement by shuffling clauses around or changing the sentence structure itself.
So, list your main points in a different order. Or, start the sentence with a different part of speech. Here’s how to do it based on our introduction paragraph examples:
Original thesis statement
Paraphrased thesis statement
The changes in how the marriage institution is perceived are the most prominent result of the falling marriage rates.
As the marriage rates fell among people under 25, the perception of the marriage institution transformed as well.
Procrastination affects students’ academic performance, mental health, and future career opportunities.
Procrastination has an impact on students’ mental well-being, academic success, and future career opportunities.
Addressing the rise of anxiety and depression among students requires a reevaluation of the social perception of mental health.
Reevaluating our attitudes toward mental health is a must if we want to address anxiety and depression among students.

3. Shift the Focus

The arguments and evidence you laid out in the main body must have brought more depth or nuance to your initial thesis statement. (If that’s not the case for your paper, you might want to revisit the main body.) So, you can present the main idea with that twist in the conclusion.
Here’s what it means in practice:
Original thesis statement
Restated thesis statement
Large enterprises should be held accountable for carbon emissions, whether with carbon credits or a carbon tax.
While large enterprises must be held accountable for carbon emissions, carbon credits aren’t the most effective solution.
The proliferation of AI tools calls for transparency in their algorithms.
Considering the many risks of biased or inaccurate output of AI algorithms, the tenets of ethical AI, including transparency, should become law.
Protecting the right to free speech is challenging even in a democratic society.
While the right to free speech is integral to any democratic society, its restrictions remain necessary.

4. Change the Tense

This technique is straightforward: switch the present tense to the past or vice versa when restating thesis statements. It’s especially effective if you focus on forward-looking implications of your paper (a past-to-present switch) or focus on the events of the past in the main body (a present-to-past switch).
Original thesis statement
Restated thesis statement
The U.S. power grid needs to be updated to handle the rising electricity consumption and severe weather events.
The outdated infrastructure caused multiple outages between 2004 and 2024, thus demonstrating the cost of overlooking the need to upgrade it.
The Watergate scandal was a turning point for the law profession.
The consequences of the Watergate scandal continue to set the framework for the legal actions of today.
Advances in facial recognition put individual privacy at risk.
Facial recognition continues to threaten individual privacy.

5. Switch Between Active and Passive Voice

If you need another (relatively) easy solution for restating your thesis, switch the active voice in the introduction to the passive voice in the conclusion or vice versa. Here’s how it’s done:
Original thesis statement
Restated thesis statement
Providing temporary housing reduces homelessness in the most effective way possible.
Homelessness can be substantially reduced by temporary housing programs.
Mass deportations don’t reduce crime rates.
Crime rates aren’t brought down by mass deportations.
Medical devices should be subject to FDA approval prior to market launch.
The FDA must turn its attention to medical devices and make the approval mandatory.
Can’t crack the right formula to restate your thesis statement without making it dull or verbose? Tinker with an AI writer to speed up the process and get some ideas!

How to Restate a Thesis: 3 More Techniques

These are the five most useful techniques that belong in your quiver. But if they don’t cut it in your case, don’t worry. Here are three more examples of how to restate your thesis without boring your readers:
Technique
Original thesis statement
Restated thesis statement
Split up your main points
Manufacturing jobs won’t come back to the United States as automation is the main culprit behind their reduction.
Foreign workers and outsourcing aren’t the main reasons manufacturing jobs have declined; automation is. Therefore, expecting manufacturing jobs to return to the U.S. means ignoring empirical evidence to the contrary.
Echo the research problem
Urban planning must adapt to the challenges of severe weather events induced by climate change.
To handle severe weather climate changes, urban planners must map climate risks and update the infrastructure to better handle heat waves, cold waves, droughts, and heavy rain and storms.
Refer to the sources used
Social media contributes to the rise in anxiety and depression among teens.
As multiple studies have shown, including the ones conducted by social media companies themselves, social media use puts teens at a higher risk of anxiety and depression.

Extra Tips for Restating Your Thesis

Your conclusion should tie up your whole narrative in a neat bow, and restating a thesis is integral to pulling the focus back onto your paper’s central idea. So, you should go beyond using synonyms and put some work into making your restatement powerful and interesting.
Here’s how to do it:
  • Elaborate on your stance. Reflect the main arguments and evidence you laid out in the main body in the restated thesis.
  • Be specific. Your restated thesis should reflect one core idea without overgeneralizing it.
  • Stay on point. Stick to being minimalist and remain clear in your writing.
  • Don’t introduce new information. This goes for the conclusion in general: it shouldn’t give new arguments or evidence out of the blue.
  • Don’t undermine your point. Stay confident in your conclusion; don’t apologize or water it down with “I think” or “It could be the case.”

In Closing

Restating a thesis is an art. While replacing some words with their synonyms or switching up the sentence structure are both easy strategies, strive to rewrite your thesis statement altogether.
So, take into account the arguments and evidence you’ve laid out in the main body paragraphs; the best conclusions tend to take a more nuanced or in-depth take on the original thesis. And if rewriting a thesis is a tough nut for you to crack, don’t forget that AI tools exist!
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Frequently asked questions

When you write a thesis restatement, you need to avoid sounding repetitive. You can do it by:
  • Rewriting your thesis statement using synonyms
  • Switch up the sentence structure to paraphrase the thesis statement
  • Shift the focus and add nuance or depth to your main idea
  • Change the present tense to the past tense or vice versa
  • Turn active voice into passive voice or vice versa
  • Split up a single sentence into multiple ones
Sure! Here’s the original statement:
Learning a foreign language is important because it can open up more career opportunities, introduce the learner to a different culture, and develop one’s cognitive skills.
And here’s a restated one:
More diverse career opportunities, exposure to a different culture, and cognitive skill development are the most prominent benefits of learning another language.
The thesis statement should communicate a clear idea that runs like a common thread through the main body. It should also remain flexible to leave enough room for restating it. But that flexibility shouldn’t come at the cost of clarity or precision.
Stick to a two-part structure when writing your thesis statement to make restating it easy: follow up your main idea with the key reasons why you defend it or how you will do it.
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