I received my Applied Research Guide from American Christian College and Seminary for the Doctor of Ministry Applied Research Project. The structure does not seem all that different (if at all) from PhD format (Chapters, etc). It has the added necessity of moving beyond the subject or topical theoretical orientation of the PhD dissertation. They do want theorems but those as hypotheses of what will work and produce results (application). So it is evaluative and geared to implementation. In reviewing it, I remember a debate on this board that raged over the alleged *over use* of secondary sources by someone in a PhD dissertation. This ARP guide strongly cautions against using secondary sources as a substitute for primary source information. Well.......................we shall see how it goes. North
.................. It is good that ACCS makes such requisites. This is the practical side of even my program there. I must come down from my tower when classes are done and make application of all this theorizing to the church's need . If you are referring to the infamous battle over W's Potch PhD thesis ,the issue as I remember was the quality of his sources in the eyes of some...including me, with apologies to the fine profs there. If I am at the doc level doing exegesis on Ephesians I won't be using the sunday school teacher's weekly lesson notes for my ideas ,I will rather be doing my own lexical research and observing the effects of grammaticisms ; if I am writing a chapter on antenicene Christology then I won't be making my points using my college text on church history ,I will be reading Irenaeus, Tertullian ,and Origen . But in my case, to make things simple, since everyone else is wrong, I've decided to write a replacement for the Westminster Catechism based on my own beliefs , hence, I only need to quote myself...as THE primary source!
