Abstract: quality of dissertations and the supporting system of literature information resource in the new era. To understand the progress of dissertation citation analysis in China and to promote its development, this study systematically analyzed the dissertation citation analysis in China since the 21st century from three perspectives: methods and tools, indicators, and topics. It found that a lot of research had adopted the quantitative analysis methods, not many had used research tools, and that most had adopted the citation form feature index. Relevant research paid more attention to topics such as the analysis on the literature information resource development and users’ needs, the writing of dissertations and academic norms. Insufficient attention was paid to themes such as the quality evaluation of dissertations and the tool to collect and analyse the citations. This study suggested that we should emphasize and integrate multiple research methods and tools, deepen the research on citation content and utility characteristics, and improve the research on relationship between citations and the quality evaluation of dissertations