ABSTRACT
As a law professor specializing in communications law, I often find myself as the external member of qualifying examination and dissertation committees for doctoral students in journalism and telecommunications. Having grown up in a field in which the JD, rather than the PhD, is the teaching degree, I have never fully understood all of the rites of this process. Without question, the most mysterious parts deal with methodology. I have read countless essays and participated in dozens of dissertation defenses that discuss, seemingly without end or purpose, independent and dependent variables, inductive and deductive reasoning, regression analysis, and standard deviations.
