Often, when someone begins seeking a theoretical framework for their dissertation, they take for granted the one they are already implicitly using, said writing coach and editor Dr. Dave Harris, with Thought Clearing.

“To be at the point where you’re writing your dissertation, you’ve already been a scholar in a graduate program for multiple years and have learned a lot,” he said. “A lot of people at this point go shopping for theories, thinking ‘oh, I need this person’s theory and that person’s theory,’ and they don’t sit down and say to themselves, ‘well, how do I think the world works and where did these ideas come from?’ Because maybe you read something two years ago, or you heard a professor lecture a couple of years ago and you’ve been using that idea, but you’re not thinking of that as a theory, even though it is part of some published theory. And often, if you think back to how you think the world is working, what’s going on, and where you got these ideas originally, you can find the foundation for the theory that you already use but are taking for granted. That can help prevent going down the rabbit hole of the literature where you read something new and get a new idea every day. It can be helpful to step back and say, ‘How do I think this works? What theories do I have?’ And ultimately, if you’re going to be a scholar, it’s about the theories that you have, so practicing explicating your own theories, and identifying their sources, can be really useful as an exercise.”