ABSTRACT
In a successful dissertation, the parts work together to form an integrated whole. The social sciences faculty made few general remarks about the nature or role of the methods section in a social science dissertation, in part because different fields use different methods. The economics, psychology, and sociology faculty who participated in the Making the Implicit Explicit study had many insightful and specific comments about the quality of the tasks of the dissertation in their fields. The task of the literature review is not simply to summarize the literature but rather to connect the problem to the research on the topic, provide a context by synthesizing the history and controversies of the field, and build a story that leads to the hypotheses.
